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THE ANNALS OF 

THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF POLITICAL 

AND SOCIAL SCIENCE 



Vol XLIX SEPTEMBER, 1918 Whole No. 138 



The 

Negro's Progress 

In Fifty Years 



Issued Bi-Monthly by the American Academy of Political and Social Science at 2419-21 York 
Road, Baltimore, Md. Editorial Office, Woodland Avenue and 36th Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 



Entered as serond-cia,» matter July «9, 19iS, at the poat^ffice at BaUimore, Maryland, under the Act of March 3, 1879 



Economic Prizes 

TENTH YEAR 

In order to arouse an interest in the study of topics relating to commerce and industry, 
and to stimulate those who have a college training to consider the problems of a business 
career, a committee composed of 

Professor J. Laurence Laughlin, University of Chicago, chairman, 
Professor J. B. Clark, Columbia University, 
Professor Henry C. Adams, University of Michigan, 
Horace White, Esq., New York City, and 
Professor Edwin F. Gay, Harvard University, 

has been enabled, through the generosity of Messrs. Hart Schaffner & Marx, of Chicago, to 
offer in 1914 four prizes for the best studies in the economic field. 

In addition to the subjects printed below, a list of available subjects proposed in past years 
may be had on request. Attention is expressly called to the rule that a competitor is not 
confined to topics proposed in the announcements of this committee, but any other subject 
chosen must first be approved by it. 

1. The competitive relations of the Suez and Panama Canals. 

2. A study of the economic conditions preceding and following the crisis of 1907. 

3. Price regulation by governmental authority. 

4. A theory of public expenditures. 

5. A study of shipping combinations in ocean transportation and their mfluence on rates. 

6. How far has the regulation of freight charges affected the development of railways in 
the United States? 

7. A study on the changes of modem standards of living. 

S. A study of the cost to the United States of its possession of the Philippine Islands. 

Class B includes only thosewho, at the time the papers are sent in, are undergraduates of 
any American college. Class A includes any other Americans without restriction; the possession 
of a degree is not required of any contestant in this class, nor is any age limit set. 

A First Prize of One Thousand Dollars, and 
A Second Prize of Five Hundred Dollars 

are offered to contestants in Qass A. 

A First Prize of Three Hundred Dollars, and 
A Second Prize of Two Hundred Dollars 

are offered to contestants in Class B. The committee reserves to itself the right to award the 
two prizes of $1,000 and $500 of Class A to undergraduates in Class B, if the merits of the 
papers demand it. The committee also reserves the privilege of dividing the prizes offered if 
justice can be best obtained thereby. The winner of a prize shall not receive the amount 
designated until he has prepared his manuscript for the printer to the satisfaction of the 
committee. 

The ownership of the copyright of successful studies will vest in the donors, and it is expected that win,n,,f ,,, 
duding the use of these papers as theses for higher degrees they will cause them to be issued m some permanent fora 

Competitors are advised that the studies should be thorough, expressed in good English, and ftlthnncr), ««♦ i;~'. j 
« to length, they should not be needlessly expanded They should ^e inscribed with an asCedn^f the fen 
which they are presented, and accompanied by a sealed envelope gnring the real name and address of th^ rnm^ V> 
No paper is eligible wh'ch shall have been prmted or published in a form to disclose the identity n(th^t,tu^uc 
the awMd shall have been made. U the competitor is in CLASS B, the sealed envelope ThoulLon fain ^l» ^^^*"'? 
the institution In which he is studying. The papers should be sent on or before June 1, 1914, to 

J. Laurence Laughlin, Esq. 

The University of Chicago 
Chicago, Illinois 



^ 



THE NEGRO'S 
PROGRESS IN FIFTY 

YEARS 




THE ANNALS 



Volume xlix 



September, 1913 



Editor: EMORY R. JOHNSON 

Assistant Editor: CLYD^ L. KING 

Editob Book Department: ROSWELIi C. McCREA 

Associate Editors: 

THOMAS CONWAY, Jr. G. G. HUEBNER 

s. s. huebner carl IOILSEY 

J. P. lichtenberger l. s. rowe 

ELLERY C. STOWELL 




American Academy of Political and Social Science 

3Gth and Woodland Avenue 

Philadelphia 



iv Contents 

THE WHITE MAN'S DEBT TO THE NEGRO 67 

L. H. Hammond, Paine College, Augusta, Ga. 

NEGRO CRIMINALITY IN THE SOUTH 74 

Monroe N. Work, Tuskegee Institute, Alabama 

THE MOVEMENT FOR THE BETTERMENT OF THE NEGRO IN 

PHILADELPHIA 81 

John T. Emlen, Secretary and Treasurer of the Armstrong Associa- 
tion of Philadelphia 

PROBLEMS OF CITIZENSHIP 93 

Ray Stannard Baker, Amherst, Mass. 

CONDITIONS AIMONG NEGROES IN THE CITIES 105 

George Edmund Haynes, Ph.D., Director, National League on 
Urban Conditions Among Negroes; Professor of Social Science, 
Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn. 

CHURCHES AND RELIGIOUS CONDITIONS 120 

J. J. Watson, Ph.D., Macon, Ga. 

NEGRO ORGANIZATIONS 129 

B. F. Lee, Jr., Field Secretary, Armstrong Association of Philadel- 
phia 

FIFTY YEARS OF NEGRO PUBLIC HEALTH 138 

S. B. Jones, M.D., Resident Physician, Agricultural and Mechanical 
College, Greensboro, N. C. 

NEGRO HOME LIFE AND STANDARDS OF LIVING 147 

Robert E. Park, Wollaston, Mass. 

RACE RELATIONSHIP IN THE SOUTH 164 

W. D. Weatherford, Ph.D., Nashville, Tenn. 

THE WORK OF THE JEANES AND SLATER FUNDS 173 

B. C. Caldwell, The John F. Slater Fund, New York 

PART IV— EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS AND NEED 

NEGRO ILLITERACY IN THE UNITED STATES 177 

J. P. Lichtenberger, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Sociology, Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania 

NEGRO CHILDREN IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF PHILADELPHIA 186 
Howard W. Odum, University of Georgia, Athens, Ga. 



Contents v 

HIGHER EDUCATION OF NEGROES IN THE UNITED STATES.. 209 
Edward T. Ware, A.B., President, Atlanta University, Atlanta, Ga. 

INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 219 

Booker T. Washington, LL.D., Principal, Tuskegee Institute, Ala. 

THE NEGRO IN LITERATURE AND ART '. 233 

W. E. Burghardt Du Bois, Ph.D., Editor, The Crisis, New York 



BOOK DEPARTMENT 239 

INDEX 261 



vi Contents 



BOOK DEPARTMENT 



NOTES 

Anderson— r/te Farmer of Tomorrow (p. 239); Andrews— Tfte Colonial 
Period (p. 239) ; Bkgot— Italians of Today (p. 240) ; Barrows—^ Sunny Life: 
The Biography of Samuel J. Barrows (p. 240) ; Bogaht— Financial History of 
Ohio (p. 241); Bowsfield— Ma/ctnf; the Farm Pay (p. 241); Brawley— A Short 
History of the American Negro (p. 241); Brooks— ylmmcan Syndicalism (p. 
242); Common School and the Negro American, The (p. 242); Devereaux— 
Aspects of Algeria (p. 242) ; Griffith— TAe Dominion of Canada (p. 243) ; Hen- 
derson— T/ie Fitness of the Environment (p. 244) ; Higginson— Tories at Work 
(p. 244) ; Howerth— W^or/c and Life (p. 245) ; McVey— 7'Ae Making of a Town 
(p. 245) ; Mvudocb.— Economics as the Basis of Living Ethics (p. 245) ; Myers— 
History as Past Ethics (p. 246) ; Parsons— TAe Old-F ashioned Woman: Primi- 
tive Fancies about the Sex (p. 246) ; Peabody— Merc/iani Venturers of Old Salem 
(p. 246) ; Penson— T/ie Economics of Everyday Life (p. 247) ; Ray— An Intro- 
duction to Political Parties and Practical Politics (p. 247) ; UoBBm&— Selected 
Articles on the Commission Plan of Municipal Government (p. 247) ; Saby— i2at7- 
road Legislation in Minnesota, 1849 to 1875 (p. 248) ; Underwood— f/m7ed Italy 
(p. 248); Usher— Pan Germanism (p. 248); Walter— Geneh'cs: An Introduc- 
tion to the Study of Heredity (p. 249) ; Weatherford— A^egro Life in the South, 
and Present Forces in Negro Progress (p. 250) ; Webb— The Economics of Rail- 
road Construction (p. 250). 

reviews 

« 

Beard — An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the 

United States (p. 250) C. L. King 

Hubbard— T/ie Fate of the Empires (p. 251) J. P. Lichtenberger 

K-Noov— Principles and Methods of Municipal Trading (p. 252) C. L. King 

Lawton— T/ie Empires of the Far East, 2 vols. (p. 253) C. L. Jones 

Moore— An Industrial History of the American People (p. 254). .E. L. Bogart 
Myers— History of the Supreme Court of the United States (p. 255) . .C. L. King 

Wallace— SoaaJ Environment and Moral Progress (p. 255) C. Kelsey 

WniTE— The First Hague Conference; Choate— T/ie Two Hague 

Conferences; Uull— The New Peace Movement (p. 256) A. S. Hershey 

Wilson— T/ie New Freedom (p. 257) B. M. Anderson, Jr. 

Wise— The Commonwealth of Australia (p. 259) C. L. Jones 



THE PAPERS IN THIS PUBLICATION WERE 

COLLECTED AND EDITED BY 

J. P. LlCHTENBERGER, Ph.D. 

ASSOCIATE EDITOR 



NEGRO POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES 
By Thomas Jesse Jones, Ph.D., 

Specialist, Bureau of Education, Department of the Interior, Washington. 

Will the ten million Negroes now in the United States continue 
to increase at the 100 per cent rate of the last 50 years? How long 
will they remain 75 per cent rural? Is the cityward tide affecting 
them equally with the white population? To what extent are they 
leaving the South and moving into the North? A moment's reflection 
will show that these are among the most vital questions confronting 
the serious minded people of our land. 

Increase of Negro Population 

According to the United States Census Bureau the increase of 
the Negro population was 120 per cent in the 50 years between 1860 
and 1910. This population in 1860 was four and a half million 
(4,441,830). In 1910 the number had increased to practically ten 
million (9,827,763). It is interesting to note by way of comparison 
that the foreign-born population of the country was about two million 
in 1860 and thirteen and a third million in 1910. These two groups 
form a total of about 23 million people, or a fourth of our total popu- 
lation. In view of the many serious problems of social adjustment 
presented by each of these groups, it is quite significant that they 
should form sueh a large proportion of our population. 

Much interest has been aroused by the fact that the 1910 census 
showed an increase for the Negro population of only 11.2 per cent 
as against 18 per cent for 1900. This fact has strengthened the 
behef of those who have been giving periodic expression to their clahn 
that the Negro is ''dying out." Even a casual study of the question, 
however, shows that such a conclusion is not well founded. In the 
first place, an increase of 11.2 per cent is about equal to the natural 
increase of any of the European people. The 1911 census of the 
Enghsh people, for example, reported an increase by excess of births 
over deaths of 12.4 per cent. This rate for 1910 was only 11.6 per 
cent. In the second place, the abrupt drop from 18 per cent of the 

1 



The AnnaXiS of the American Academy 



Negro population in 1900 to 11.2 per cent in 1910 is explained by 
errors in the censuses prior to 1900 and not by any abnormal changes 
in the Negro people. An examination of the following rates of in- 
crease since 1860 throws much light on this subject: 



Decade 


Increase 


Per cent of Increase 


1900-1910 


993,769 
1,345,318 

907,883 

1,700,784 

438,179 


11 2 


1890-1900 

1880-1890 


18.0 
13 8 


1870-1880 


34 9 


1860-1870 


9.9 



The well known errors of the 1870 enumeration of the South 
explain the abnormal increase reported for that decade. The sudden 
increase from 13.8 per cent in 1890 to 18 per cent in 1900 and the 
drop in the rate of increase to 11.2 in 1910 clearly indicate errors in 
some of these percentages. The explanation of these irregularities 
now given by those familiar with these three censuses is that the 
census of 1890 was an undercount, thus causing the census of 1900 
to include not only the regular increase of the decade 1890 to 1900 but 
also the number of those not counted in 1890. The percentages of 
increase readjusted to eliminate the errors would be: 



Decade 


Per cent of Increase 


1900-1910 


11 2 


1S90-1900 


14 


1880-1890 


18 


1870-1880 


22 


1860-1870 


21 3 


- 





According to this series there has been a gradual decrease in the 
rate of increase for the Negroes of the United States so that the in- 
crease in 1910 was about one million persons in ten years, or 11.2 
per cent. A comparison of this descending series with that of any 
normal European people increasing only by the excess of births over 
deaths makes it quite clear that a decreasing rate of increase ending 
in a rate of about 11 or 12 per cent is quite normal. While the re- 
turns of the 1910 census are a fairly accurate measure of the increase 
of the Negi'o people in the United States and undoubtedly nearer 



Negro Population in the United States 3 

to the truth than the returns of any previous census, there is Httle 
doubt that the omissions in the case of the Negro population were 
greater than in the case of the whites. The most definite evidence 
of these omissions is the apparent undercount of Negro children 
under 5 years of age. A study of the following figures from the 1910 
census shows the probability of such omissions: 



Age period 



Native white of native 
parentage 



Negro 



Under 5 years of age 

Number 

Per cent 

5 to 9 years of age 

Number 

Per cent 



6,546,282 
13.2 

5,861,015 
11.8 



1,263,288 
12.9 

1,246,553 
12.7 



The numerical relation of these two age groups under normal 
conditions is seen in the figures for the whites. It is to be expected 
that the second group will be less than the first because of the deaths 
that have occurred during the first period. In the case of the native 
white of native parents the difference is 1.4 per cent whereas in the 
Negro groups the difference is only 0.2 per cent. There are three 
possible causes for this condition, namely, a high infant mortahty, 
a sudden decrease in the birth-rate, and omissions of children by the 
census. The probability is that the three causes operated more 
strongly in the case of the Negro children than in that of the white, 
but the major causes of the abnormal relation of the age groups of 
the Negro children are undoubtedly the high rate of infant mortality 
and the failure of the enumerators to count Negro children. 



Distribution and Proportion 

While the rate of increase of the Negro population is about equal 
to that of the average European nation, the proportion which they 
form of the total population of the United States is steadily decreas- 
ing. In 1860 the Negro population was 14.1 per cent of the total 
population. By 1910 this proportion had decreased to 10.7 per cent. 
Not only is this true of the total population but it applies also to 
almost all of the Southern States. Only in the Northern States does 
the Negro population fail to show a decrease in the proportion which 



4 The Annals of the American Academy 

they form of the total population, this proportion being 1.8 for both 
1900 and 1910. 

Proportion North and South. In view of the increasing discus- 
sion of the northward movement of the Negroes, it is important to 
note the census returns on this subject. The following table com- 
pares the proportion of all Negroes living in the North with that 
in the South in 1910 and in 1900: 





South 


North 


1910 

Number 

Per cent 


8,749,427 
89.0 

7,922,969 
89.7 


1,078,336 
11.0 


1900 

Number 

Per cent 


911,025 
10.3 







These figures seem to indicate that the Negroes are maintaining 
their proportion both in the North and in the South. The change 
toward the northern and western sections is less than one per cent 
of the total Negro population. The increase of Negroes in the North- 
ern states was 167,311 persons, or about 18 per cent between 1900 
and 1910. In the decade ending in 1900 the increase was 182,926, 
or about 25 per cent. It would appear from these figures, then, that 
the northward movement of the Negroes was really less in the last 
decade than in the one preceding. 

Interesting information on the movement away from the South 
during the last 20 or 30 years is given in the census returns on the 
state of birth of the persons enumerated. According to the census 
of 1910 there were in the North and West 440,534 Negroes born in 
the South. Negroes born in the North and West now living in the 
South were 41,489. The net loss of Negroes of the South to the 
North and West was, therefore, 399,045. By the same process 
Southern whites show a net loss of only 46,839. 

States and Counties. The increase of the Negro population for 
the last decade is well distributed over the states. The largest gains 
among the Northern States were those for New York with 35,000 or 
35 per cent, Pennsylvania with 37,000 or 23 per cent, and Illinois 
with 24,000 or 28 per cent. The Negro population of California 
made the largest gain adding 11,000 people, or 96 per cent in the 



Negro Population in the United States 5 

decade ending in 1910. The smallest increase, only 2 per cent, is 
reported for the seven states immediately west of the Mississippi 
from Minnesota to Kansas. 

Closely related to the northward trend discussed above is the 
rearrangement of the population by states and counties. Among the 
most striking facts shown by the last two censuses are the decreases 
and the small increases of the Negro population in the border states. 
Of the six states in which the Negro population decreased during the 
last ten years, four of them — Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee and 
Missouri — are border states. The increases for Virginia and Dela- 
ware were so small that they can be classed with the retarded group. 
A comparison of the movement of the white and Negro population 
in counties of the border states brings out some striking contrasts. 
In the 98 counties of Virginia, for example, the whites gained in 84, 
while the Negroes lost in 68. Similar contrasts appear in the figures 
for each of the border states. It is quite clear, then, that the move- 
ments of the whites and Negroes of the border states are quite differ- 
ent. The probability is that the Negroes of these states are attracted 
to the cities of neighboring Northern States by what appears to them 
superior economic and educational opportunities in these states. 

The study of the county population of the more southern South, 
from South Carolina to Louisiana, presents a very different situation, 
as regards the movement of the white and Negro population, from 
that of the border states. In the 67 counties of Alabama, for ex- 
ample, the whites increased in 51 counties, in the decade 1990 to 
1910, and the Negroes increased in 43 counties. Each of the cotton 
states with their large Negro population shows a stability of popula- 
tion and a prevalence of gains that contrast quite strikingly with 
the losses and differences of the border states. The population move- 
ments of these states seem to be governed by the same forces. At 
any rate, the two classes of the population apparently move and in- 
crease together. 

The two charts which follow help to explain some of the points 
already made and present a number of other interesting facts as to 
the distribution of Negro population. The primary purpose of the 
chart entitled "Total Negro Population" is to facilitate the compari- 
son of the Negro population of Southern States in 1900 and in 1910. 

One glance at the chart will show that Delaware has the shortest 
lines, indicating a Negro population of 30,697 in 1900 and 31,181 in 



The Annals of the American Academy 



1910, while Georgia has the longest lines with a population of 1,034,813 
in 1900 and 1,176,987 in 1910. The "big four" of the Southern States 
are evidently Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina, in 
the order named. The second point shown on this chart is the change 
which has taken place in the number of Negroes since 1900. The 

TOTAL 

NEGRO POPULATION 



lOOOI 



I910I 



DEL. 

MD. 

D.C. 

VA. 

N.C. 

S.C. 

GA. 

FLA. 

KY. 

TENN. 

ALA. 

MISS. 

ARK. 

LA. 

OKLA. 

TEX. 




most striking fact disclosed is the substantial increases of the more 
Southern States and the decreases or small increases of the border 
states. The three states decreasing in Negro population are as fol- 
lows: Maryland, 1.2 per cent; Tennessee, 1.5 per cent; and Kentucky, 
8.1 per cent. The probable explanation of these decreases has been 
given above. The percentages of increase in the remaining states 



Negro Population in the United States 7 

shown on the chart are as follows: Delaware, 1.6; District of Colum- 
bia, 8.9; Virginia, 1.6; West Virginia, 47.5; North Carolina, 11.7; 
South Carolina, 6.8; Georgia, 13.7; Florida, 33.8; Alabama, 9.8; Mis- 
sissippi, 11.2; Arkansas, 20.7; Louisiana, 9.7; Oklahoma, 1-47.1; Texas, 
11.2. While the absolute Negro population has increased in all but 
three of the Southern States, the proportion which they form of the 
total population has decreased in practically every Southern State. 
In 1900 the Negroes were 32.3 per cent of the total population of the 
South. By 1910 this percentage had decreased to 29.8 per cent. 
Over 50 per cent of the population of Mississippi and South Carolina 
are Negroes. Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana are over 
40 per cent, and Virginia and North Carolina are over 30 per cent 
Negro. These percentages are shown on the following chart for all 
of the Southern States. 

Urban and Rnral. In the South the movement of the Negroes 
into the cities is about the same as that for the white population. 
The following percentages of urban population show how parallel 
the movement is for both races in the nine Southern States which 
the figures represent: 





1910 


1900 


1890 


White 


18.9 
17.7 


14.0 
14.7 


11 6 


Negro 


11.8 







Up to the last decade the proportion of the Negro population 
that lived in the cities of the South was practically the same as the 
proportion of the white population. In 1890 the proportion for each 
race was about 12 per cent. By 1900 these percentages had in- 
creased to 14.0 and 14.7, respectively. In the last decade the white 
people have sent a larger proportion of their number to the cities 
than the Negroes. These facts are in agreement with the statements 
made above concerning the southern South. 

Another fact, easily confused with the statement just made 
and not often realized, is the statement in a recent publication of the 
census bureau to the effect that the Negroes form about the same 
proportion of the urban population of the South as they do of the 
rural population. In the three Southern groups of states the Negro 
formed 29.4, 32.3 and 22.3 per cent of the urban population and 35.2, 



8 



The Annals of the American Academy 



31.4 and 22.7 per cent of the rural population. It would appear 
from these figures that in numerical strength the Negro is as impor- 
tant a factor of the urban population of the South as he is of the rural 
districts of that section. 



PERCENTAGE OF 

NEGRO POPULATION 



DEL.. 

MD. 

D.C., 

VA. 

N.C. 

S.C. 

GA. 

FLA. 

KY. 

TENN. 

ALA. 

MISS. 

ARK. 

LA. 

OKLA. 

TEX. 



I900E 



1910 1 



90 lOO 




In the North, the urban and rural distribution of the Negroes 
reverses the proportion of the South. In New England, for example, 
91.8 per cent of the Negroes lived in urban communities; in the middle 
Atlantic States 81.2; and in the East North Central States includ- 
ing Illinois and its neighboring states the urban proportion was 76.6. 
All of these figures support the conclusion of the census bureau that 



Negro Population in the United States 



the Negroes who have migrated from the South have to a large extent 
gone to the cities. 

The following table is a statement of some important facts con- 
cerning all the cities which contained at least 10,000 in 1910. 



Washington, D. C. 
New York, N. Y... 
New Oi-Ieans, La.. . 

Baltimore, Md 

Philadelphia, Pa... 

Memphis, Tenn 

Birmingham, Ala... 

Atlanta, Ga 

Richmond, Va 

St. Louis, Mo 

Chicago, 111 

Louisville, Kj' 

Nashville, Tenn.... 

Savannah, Ga , 

Charleston, S. C . . 
Jacksonville, Fla.. . 

Pittsburgh, Pa 

Norfolk, Va 

Houston, Texas 

Kansas City, Mo. . . 

Mobile, Ala 

Indianapolis, Ind... 

Cincinnati, Ohio 

Montgomery, Ala... 

Augusta, Ga 

Macon, Ga 

Chattanooga, Tenn. 

Little Rock, Ark 

Boston, Mass 

Wilmington, N. C... 

Petersburg, Va 

Lexington, Ky 



NEGRO POPULATION 



1910 



1900 



94,446 

91,709 

89,262 

84,749 

84,459 

5 ,441 

52,305 

51,902 

46,733* 

43,960 

44,103 

40,522 

36,523 

33,246 

31,056t 

29,293 

25,623 

25,039 

23,929 

23,566 

22,763 

21,816 

19,639 

19,322 

18,344t 

18,150 

17,942 

14,539t 

13,564 

12,107 

11,014 

11,011 



86,702 

60,666 

77,714 

79,258 

62,613 

49,910 

16,575 

35,727 

32,230 

35,516 

30,150 

39,139 

30,044 

28,090 

31,569 

16,236 

17,040 

20,230 

14,608 

17,567 

17,045 

15,931 

14,482 

17,229 

18,487 

11,550 

13,122 

14,694 

11,591 

10,407 

10,751 

10,130 



i Percent of 
- ' Increase 
1900-1910 



8.9 
51.2 

14.9 

6.9 
34.9 

5.1 
215.6 
45.3 
31.4 
23.8 
36.3 

3.5 
21.6 
18.3 

1.5t 
81.0 



roportlon 
Negro In total 
population 



28.5 

1.9 

26.3 

15.2 

5.5 

40.0 

39.4 

33 5 

36.6 

6.4 

2.0 

18.1 

33.1 

51.1 

52.8 

50.8 



25.9 


4.8 


23.7 


37.1 


63.1 


30.4 


54.1 


9.5 


33.4 


44.2 


36.9 


9.3 


35.6 


5.4 


12.1 


50.7 


0.7t 


44.7 


57.1 


44.6 


36.8 


40.2 


i.ot 


31.6 


17.0 


2.0 


16.3 





2.4 


• • * ■ 


8.7 





* Includes population of Manchester, 
t Decrease. 



PROFESSIONAL AND SKILLED OCCUPATIONS 

By Kelly Miller, LL.D., 
Dean, Howard University, Washington, D. C. 

Tlic world's workers may be divided into two well-defined 
classes: (1) those who are concerned in the production and distri- 
bution of wealth, and (2) those whose function is to regulate the 
physical, intellectual, moral, spiritual, and social life of the people. 
The sustaining element includes workers in the field of agriculture, 
domestic and personal service, trade and transportation, and in 
manufacturing and mechanical pursuits. The governing class com- 
prises government officials, ministers, teachers, phj^sicians, lawyers, 
editors, and authors. The great bulk of the population represent- 
ing the toiling masses is found mider the first head, while a com- 
paratively small number is required for the so-called learned pro- 
fessions. In the United States, the two elements are divided in the 
approximate ratio of twenty to one. Traditionally, these two classes 
have been separated by a wide and deep social gulf. All honor 
and glory have attached to the higher professional pursuits, while 
those who recruited the ranks of the toiling world have been ac- 
corded a distinctively lower order of consideration and esteem. The 
youth w^ho were most highly gifted by nature or favored by fortune 
naturally sought careers in the genteel professions, leaving those 
of lesser gifts and limited opportunity to recruit the ranks of the 
lower order of service. Present tendency, however, is against this 
hard and fast demarcation. Distinction is made to depend upon 
success, and success upon efficiency, regardless of the nature of the 
pursuit or vocation. Honor and shame no longer attach to stated 
occupations or callings, but depend upon achievement in work rather 
than in choice of task. 

The Negro w^as introduced into this country for the purpose of 
performing manual and menial labor. It w^as thought that, for all 
time to come, he would be a satisfied and contented hewer of w^ood, 
drawer of w^ater and tiller of the soil. He was supposed to represent 
a lower order of creation, a little more than animal and a little less 

10 



Professional and Skilled Occupations 11 

than human. The dominant dogma of that day denied him capac- 
ity or aspiration to rise above the lowest level of menial service. He 
was deemed destined to everlasting servility by divine decree. His 
place was fixed and his sphere defined in the cosmic scheme of things. 
There was no more thought that he would or could ever aspire to 
the ranks of the learned professions than that like ambition would 
ever actuate the lower animals. Much of this traditional bias is 
brought forward and reappears in the present day attitude on the 
race problem. There still lingers a rapidly diminishing remnant 
of infallible philosophers who assume intimate acquaintance with 
the decrees of the Almighty and loudly assert that the Negro is 
God-ordained to everlasting inferiority. But those who assume fore- 
knowledge with such self-satisfied assurance prudently enough fail 
to tell us of their secret means of familiarity with the divine plans 
and purposes. They do not represent the calibre of mind or quality 
of spirit through which such revelation is usually vouchsafed to 
man. From this school of opinion, the Negro's aspiration to enter 
the learned professions is met with ridicule and contempt. The 
time, money, and effort spent upon the production and preparation 
of this class have been worse than wasted because they tend to 
subvert the ordained plan. Higher education is decried; industrial 
education, or rather the training of the hand, is advised, as the 
hand is considered the only instrument through which the black 
man can fulfill his appointed mission. 

But social forces, like natural laws, pay little heed to the noi- 
some declaration of preconceived opinion. The inherent capacities 
of human nature will assert themselves despite the denial of the 
doctrinaire. The advancement of the Negro during the past fifty 
years has belied every prediction propounded by this doleful school 
of philosophy. Affirmed impossibilities have come to pass. The 
"never" of yesterday has become the actuality of today. 

In a homogeneous society where there is no racial cleavage, 
only the select members of the most favored class of society occupy 
the professional stations. The element representing the social status 
of the Negro would furnish few members of the coveted callings. 
The element of race, however, complicates every feature of the 
social equation. In India, we are told, the population is divided 
horizontally by caste and vertically by religion. But in America, 
the race spirit serves as both a horizontal and a vertical separation. 



12 The Annals of the American Academy 

The Negro is segregated and shut into himself in all social and semi- 
social relations of life. This isolation necessitates separate minis- 
trative agencies from the lowest to the highest rungs of the ladder 
of service. During the days of slavery, the interest of the master 
demanded that he should direct the general social and moral life 
of the slave. The sudden severence of this tie left the Negro wholly 
without intimate guidance and direction. The ignorant must be 
enlightened, the sick must be healed, the poor must have the gospel 
preached to them, the way^\^ard must be directed, the lowly must 
be uplifted, and the sorrowing must be solaced. The situation and 
circumstances under which the race found itself demanded that its 
ministers, teachers, physicians, lawyers, and editors should, for the 
most part, be men of their own blood antl sympathies. The de- 
mands for a professional class were imperative. The needed service 
could not be effectively performed by those who assume and assert 
racial arrogance and hand down their benefactions as the cold crumbs 
that fall from the master's table. The help that is to be helpful 
to the lowly and the humble must come from the horizontal hand 
stretched out in fraternal good will, and not the one that is pointed 
superciliously downward. The professional class who are to uplift 
and direct the lowly and humble must not say "So far shalt thou 
come but no farther," but rather "Where I am there ye shall be 
also." 

There is no more pathetic chapter in the history of human 
struggle than the smothered and suppressed ambition of this race 
in its daring endeavor to meet the greatest social exigency to supply 
the professional demand of the masses. There was the suddenness and 
swiftness of leap as when a quantity in mathematics changes signs 
in passing through zero or infinity. In an instant, in the twink- 
ling of an eye, the plow-hand was transformed into the priest, the 
barber into the bishop, the house-maid into the school-mistress, the 
porter into the physician, and the day-laborer into the lawyer. 
These high places of intellectual and moral authority into which 
they found themselves thrust by stress of social necessity, had to 
be operated with at least some semblance of conformity with the 
standards which had been established by the European through the 
traditions of the ages. The high places in society occupied by the 
choicest members of the white race after years of preliminary prep- 
aration had to be assumed by men without personal or formal fitness. 



Professional and Skilled Occupations 13 

The stronger and more aggressive natures pushed themselves into 
these high callings by sheer force of untutored energy and uncon- 
trolled ambition. That there would needs be much grotesqueness, 
mal-adjustment, and failures goes without saying. But after making 
full allowance for human imperfections, the 50,000 Negroes who 
now fill the professional places among their race represent a remark- 
able body of men, and indicate the potency and promise of the race. 

The federal census of 1900 furnishes the latest available data 
of the number of Negroes engaged in the several productive and 
professional pursuits. 

Allowance, of course, must be made for growth in several depart- 
ments during the intervening thirteen years. 

Negroes Engaged in Productive and Distributive Pursuits, 1900 

Agriculture 2,143,154 

Domestic and personal service 1.317,859 

Trade and transportation 208,989 

Manufacturing and mechanical pursuits 275,116 

Total 3,945,118 

Negroes Engaged in Professional Service, 1900 

Clergymen 15,528 

Phj^sicians and surgeons 1,734 

Dentists 212 

Lawyers 728 

Teachers 21,267 

Musicians and teachers of music 3,915 

Architects, designers, draughtsmen 52 

Actors, professional showmen, etc 2,020 

Artists and teachers of art 236 

Electricians 185 

Engineers and surveyors 120 

Journalists 210 

Literary and scientific persons 99 

Government officials 645 

Others in professional service 268 

Total 47,219 

From these tables it will be seen that only 1 Negro worker in 84 
is engaged in professional pursuits. Whereas, 1 white person in 20 
is found in this class. According to this standard the Negro has 
less than one-fourth of his professional quota. 



14 The Annals of the American Academy 

The Negro ministry was the first professional body to assume 
full control and direction of the moral and spiritual life of the masses. 
As soon as the black worshipper gained a conscious sense of self- 
respect, which the Christian religion is sure to impart, he became 
dissatisfied with the assigned seats in the synagogue. The back 
pews and upper galleries did not seem compatible with the dignity 
of those who had been baptized into the fellowship and communion 
of the saints. With the encouragement of the whites, the Negro 
worshippers soon set up their own separate houses of worship. There 
arose a priesthood, after the maimer of ]\Ielchizedek, without 
antecedent or preparation. But, notwithstanding all their disabili- 
ties, these comparatively ignorant and untrained men have suc- 
ceeded in organizing the entire Negro race into definite religious 
bodies and denominational affiliations. The Baptist and Methodist 
denominations, which operate on the basis of ecclesisatical indepen- 
dence, have practically brought the entire race under their spiritual 
dominion. This is the one conspicuous achievement placed to the 
credit of the race by way of handling large interests. Passing over 
the inevitable imjierfections in the development of the religious life 
of the race, the great outstanding fact remains that this vast reli- 
gious estate, comprising 30,000 church organizations, with a member- 
ship of over 3,500,000 communicants, upon a property basis of 
$56,000,000, has been organized and handed down to the rising gen- 
eration as its most priceless inheritance. The Negro church is not 
merely a religious institution, but comprises all the complex features 
of the fife of the people. It furnishes the only field in which the Negro 
has shown initiative and executive energy on a large scale. There is 
no other way to reach the masses of the race wth any beneficent min- 
istrations except through the organizations that these churches have 
established. The statesmanship and philanthropy of the nation would 
do well to recognize this fact. Indeed, it is seriously to be ques- 
tioned if any belated people, in the present status of the Negro, 
can be wisely governed without the element of priestcraft. Broadly 
speaking, the Negro is hardly governed at all by the state, but 
merely coerced and beaten into obedience. He is not encouraged 
to have any comprehensive understanding of or participating hand 
in the beneficent aims and objects of government. The sheriff and 
the trial judge are the only government officials with whom he is 
familiar; and he meets with these only when his life or his property 



Professional and Skilled Occupations 15 



is in jeopardy. If it were not for the church, the great mass of the 
Negro race would be wholly shut off from any organized influence 
touching them with sympathetic intent. As imperfect as the Negro 
church must be in many of its features, it is the most potential 
uplifting agency at work among the people. Eliminate the church, 
and the masses of the people would speedily lapse into a state of 
moral and social degeneration worse than that from which they are 
slowly evohdng. The great problem in the uplift of the race must 
be approached through the pulpit. The Negro preacher is the spokes- 
man and leader of the people. He derives his support from them 
and speaks, or ought to speak, with the power and authority of 
the masses. He will be the daysman and peacemaker between the 
races, and in his hands is the keeping of the key of the destiny of 
the race. If these 30,000 pulpits could be filled in this generation 
by the best intelligence, character, and consecration within the race, 
all of its complex problems would be on a fair way towards solution. 
The ignorance of the ministry of the passing generation was the 
kind of ignorance that God utilizes and winks at; but He ^^dll not 
excuse or vrink at its continuance. It is a sad day for any race 
when the "best they breed" do not aspire to the highest and holiest 
as well as the most influential callings; but it will be sadder still 
for a retarded race, if its ministry remains in the hands of those 
who are illy prepared to exercise its high functions. 

The rise of the colored teacher is due to the outcome of the 
Civil "U'ar. The South soon hit upon the plan of the scholastic 
separation of the races and assigned colored teachers to colored 
schools as the best means of carrying out this policy. There were 
at first a great many white teachers mainly from the North, but in 
time, the task of enlightening the milUons of Negro children has 
devolved upon teachers of their own race. It was inevitable that 
many of the teachers for whom there was such a sudden demand 
should be poorly prepared for their work. It was and still is a 
travesty upon terms to speak of such work as many of them are 
able to render as professional service. 

Among the white race, the teacher has not yet gained the ful- 
ness of stature as a member of the learned professions. They do 
not constitute a self -directing body; both are controlled as a col- 
lateral branch of the state or city government, of which they con- 
stitute a subordinate part. The ranks are recruited mainly from 



16 The Annals of the American Academy 

the female sex. In case of the Negro teacher, these hmitations are 
severely emphasized. The orders and directions come from tlie 
white superintendent, but there is some latitude of judgment and 
discretion in a wise and sensible adaptation. The great function 
of the Negro teacher is found in the fact that she has committed to 
her the training of the mind, manners, and method of the young 
who are soon to take their place in the ranks of the citizenship of 
the nation. While there is wanting the independent scope which 
the preacher exercises in the domain of moral and spiritual control, 
nevertheless the teacher exercises a most important function in the 
immediate matters committed to her. The Negro teacher has the 
hardest and heaviest burden of any other element of the teaching 
profession. Education means more to the Negro than it does to 
the white child who from inheritance and environment gains a cer- 
tain coefficiency of power aside from the technical acquisition of 
the school room. The teacher of the Negro child, on the other 
hand, must impart not only the letter, but also the fundamental 
meaning of the ways and methods of civilized life. She should have 
a preparation for work and the fixed consecration to duty commen- 
surate to the imposed task. 

The colored doctor has more recentlj^ entered the arena. At 
first, the Negro patient refused to put confidence in the physicians 
of his own race, notwithstanding the closer intimacy of social con- 
tact. It was only after he had demonstrated his competency to 
treat disease as skillfull}^ as the white practitioner that he was able 
to win recognition among his own people. The colored physician 
is still in open competition with the white physician, who never 
refuses to treat the Negro patient if allowed to assume the disdain- 
ful attitude of racial superiority. If the Negro doctor did not secure 
practically as good results in treating disease as the white practi- 
tioner, he would soon find himself without patients. He must be 
subject to the same preliminary test of fitness for the profession, 
and must maintain the same standard of efficiency and success. 
The Negro physicians represent the only body of colored men, who, 
in adequate numbers, measure up to the full scientific requirements 
of a learned profession. 

By reason of the stratum which the Negro occupies in our 
social scheme, the race is an easy prey to diseases that affect the 
health of the whole nation. The germs of disease have no race 



Professional and Skilled Occupations 17 

prejudice. They do not even draw the Une at social equality. The 
germ that afflicts the Negro today will attack the white man to- 
morrow. One touch of disease makes the whole world kin, and 
also kind. The Negro physician comes into immediate contact with 
the masses of the race. He is a sanitary missionary. His minis- 
tration is not only to his own race, but to the community and to 
the nation as a whole. The dreaded white plague which the nation 
desires to stamp out by concerted action seems to prefer the black 
victim. The Negro physician is one of the most efficient agencies 
in helping to stamp out this dread enemy of mankind. His success 
has been little less than marvelous. In all parts of the country he 
is rendering efficient service and is achieving both professional and 
financial success. Educated Negro men are crowding into this pro- 
fession and will of course continue to do so until the demand has 
been fully supplied. The race can easily support twice the number 
of physicians now qualified to practice. 

The Negro lawyer has not generally been so fortunate as his 
medical confrere. The relation between attorney and client is not 
necessarily close and confidential as that of physician and patient, 
but is more business-like and formal. The client's interests are also 
dependent upon the judge and jury with whom the white attorne}^ 
is sometimes supposed to have greater weight and influence. For 
such reasons, there are fewer Negroes in the profession of law than 
in the other so-called learned professions. The Negro lawyer is 
rapidly winning his way over the prejudice of both races, just as 
the doctor has had to do. The re a re to be found in every com- 
munity oxamp_le,sjQf. the. Negro lawj^er who has won recognition from 
Both races and who m.aintains a high standard of personal and 
professional success. A colored lawyer was appointed by President 
Taft as assistant attornej^-general of the United States, and by 
universal testimony conducted the affairs of his office with the requi- 
site efficiency and dignity. As Negro enterprises multiply and de- 
velop, such as banks, building associations, and insurance companies, 
and the general prosperity of the people increases, the Negro lawyer 
will find an increasing sphere of usefulness and influence. 

Negroes are also found in all the other professional pursuits 
and furnish a small quota of editors, engineers, electricians, authors, 
and artists. Merchants, bankers, and business men are rapidly 
increasing in all parts of the countr3\ Apprehension is sometimes 



18 The Annals of the American Academy 

felt that colored men will rush to the learned professions to the 
neglect of the humbler lines of service. The facts show that the 
race at present has not more than a fourth of its quota in the pro- 
fessional pursuits. The demand will always regulate the supply. 
When the demand has been supplied in any profession, the overflow, 
will seek outlet in unoccupied fields. 

The uplift and quickening of the life of the race depends upon 
the professional classes. The early philanthropist in the Southern 
field acted wisely in developing leaders among the people. Philan- 
thropy at best can only furnish the first aid and qualify leaders. 
The leaders must then do the rest. Any race is hopeless unless it 
develops its own leadership and direction. It is impossible to apply 
philanthropy to the masses except through the professional classes. 

The higher education of the Negro is justified by the require- 
ments of the leaders of the people. It is a grave mistake to sup- 
pose that, because the Negro is relatively backward as compared 
to the white man, his leaders need not have the broadest and best 
education that our civilization affords. The more backward and 
ignorant the 'led, the more skilled and sagacious should the leader 
lx>. It requires more skill to lead the helpless than to guide those 
Avho need no direction. If the blind lead the blind, they will both 
fall into the ditch. The professional class constitutes the light of 
the race. The Negro needs headlight to guide him safely and wisely 
amid the dangers and vicissitudes of an environing civilization. 

The Negro teacher meets with every form of ignorance and 
pedagogical obtuseness that befalls the white teacher; the Negro 
preacher has to do with every conceivable form of original and 
acquired sin; the doctor meets with all the variety of disease that 
the human flesh is heir to; the lawyer's sphere covers the whole 
gamut involving the rights of property and person. The problems 
involved in the contact, attrition, and adjustment of the races involve 
issues which are as intricate as any that have ever taxed human 
■wdsdom for solution. If, then, the white man who stands in the high 
place of authority and leadership among his race, fortified as he is 
by a superior social environment, needs to qualify for his high call- 
ing by thorough and sound educational training, surely the Negro 
needs a no less thorough general education to qualify him to serve 
as philosopher, guide, and friend of ten million unfortunate human 
beings. 



THE NEGRO IN UNSKILLED LABOR 

By R. R. Wright, Jr., Ph.D., 
Editor, The Christian Recorder, Philadelphia. 

By the term "unskilled labor," as used in this paper, is meant 
that class of labor which requires the least training of mind and the 
least skill of hand: that class of labor in which the novice can turn 
out as large a product as the man of long experience, in which the 
wage earned the first year is but little different from that earned 
after many years of service. 

Fifty years ago, most of the Negro workers were unskilled 
laborers on the farms and in the homes of the South. Of the 4,000,000 
slaves who were emancipated by Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation 
Proclamation, there were, approximately, 3,000,000 ten years of age 
and over, and most of these were engaged in unskilled labor as agri- 
cultural workers and domestic servants, general helpers, etc. Very 
nearly 2,000,000 were workers on the farms of the South, and most of 
the others were workers in the households of the South. Those were 
unskilled laborers. 

There were, indeed, a few Negroes in the South who were engaged 
in mechanical pursuits, such as carpenters, bricklayers, blacksmiths, 
etc., but these constituted only a small percentage. And judged by 
the standards of today, I am inclined to think that the degree of their 
skill was far short of that required for successful competition with 
present day artisans. For example, most of the carpenters of the time 
could not read and write and built "by guess," rather than from 
written plans. One has only to examine specimens of their work to 
become convinced that they, at the very best, rarely reached the 
average of skill required of mechanics today. 

In the North, the 250,000 Negroes were practically all unskilled 
laborers, with notable exceptions here and there. A census of Negroes 
in Philadelphia in 1856 disclosed a few hundred who had skilled 
trades, but the investigator added that "less than two-thirds of those 
who have trades, follow them. A few of the remainder pursue other 
avocations from choice, but the greater number are compelled to 

19 



20 The Annals of the American Academy 

abandon their trades on account of the unrelenting prejudice against 
their color." 

The figures for occupations for the census of 1910 have not yet 
been published. We have therefore to content ourselves with those 
given out for 1900. In 1900 the census returned Negroes in the follow- 
ing occupations: 

Number of Negroes, Ten Years of Age and Over, in the Five Main 

Classes of Occupation 

Number , Percentage 



Agricultural pursuits | 2,143,176 53.7 

Professional service 47,324 1 . 2 

Domestic and personal service | 1,324,160 33.0 

Trade and transportation 

Manufacturing and mechanical pursuits 



209,154 i 5.2 

275,149 ! G.9 



There were 53.7 per cent of the Negroes in agriculture, 33 per 
cent in domestic and personal service, 6.9 per cent in manufacturing 
and mechanical pursuits, 5.2 per cent in trade and transportation, 
and 1.2 per cent in professional service. 

Unskilled labor among Negroes is chiefly in agricultural pur- 
suits, domestic and personal service, and trade and transportation. 

Of the 2,143,176 Negroes in agricultural pursuits, in 1900, 
1,344,139 were agricultural laborers, while 757,828 were farmers. 
The agricultural laborers, representing the unskilled workers, had, 
however, decreased from 1,362,713 in 1890, to 1,344,139 in 1900; 
while the farmers, representing the skilled group, increased from 
590,666 in 1890 to 757,828 in 1900. Other unskilled workers returned 
in 1900 are chiefly noted under the following: lumbermen and rafts- 
men, 6,222; turpentine farmers and laborers, 20,744; wood choppers, 
9,703. 

It is to be noted that although the Negro population has increased 
nearly 150 per cent, during the past 50 years, the agricultural labor- 
ers have remained ahnost the same in number, while the more skilled 
workers are constantly increasing. 

Next to agriculture, comes domestic and personal service which 
furnished 1,324,160 persons. As in agriculture, so in domestic service, 
much of the labor is skilled and semi-skilled, though it may be 
classed as unskilled. There were 11,536 janitors and sextons; 545,980 



The Negro in Unskilled Labor 21 

laborers; 220,105 launderers and laundresses; 465,787 servants and 
waiters; 9,681 soldiers, sailors and marines; 2,994 watchmen, police- 
men and firemen, and 6,070 in other branches of domestic and per- 
sonal service. 

In trade and transportation, of the 209,154 Negroes engaged, 
the following may be said to be unskilled occupations: draymen, 
hackmen, teamsters, etc., 67,727; hostlers, 14,499; hucksters and 
peddlers, 3,270; porters and helpers in stores, 28,978; messengers and 
office boys, 5,077. 

In all of these classes of unskilled occupations, the Negroes 
constitute a much greater percentage than their percentage of the 
population. In the fifteen unskilled occupations named, there are 
2,756,442 Negroes, or nearly 70 per cent of all the Negroes engaged in 
general occupations. The number of unskilled workers in the race 
must be at least 75 per cent, or about 3,000,000, about the same num- 
ber as estimated fifty years ago. 

During the past fifty years, however, there have been significant 
changes in unskilled labor among Negroes, some of which are here 
enumerated : 

1. The race, then largely unskilled, has developed more than a 
million semi-skilled and skilled workers, business and professional 
men and women. 

2. The standard of the unskilled worker, himself, has been raised. 

3. The unskilled worker has adapted himself to a system of 
wages, as against the system of slavery. 

4. The average of intelligence of unskilled labor has been greatly 
increased. 

5. Unskilled labor has become more reliable. 

6. Negro labor has survived the competition of the immigrant. 

7. The unsldlled Negro laborer has migrated largely to the large 
cities. 

8. Unskilled labor, has to a large extent, been the foundation on 
which Negro businesses, the Negro church, the Negro secret society 
have grown up. 

Out of 3,000,000 unskilled Negro workers who were freed in 1863, 
and the few thousand unskilled and semi-skilled, who already had their 
freedom there have developed the various occupations of Negroes we 
have today. The most notable development is in the emergence of 
Negro professional men and women, a group of 60,000 or more persons 



22 The Annals of the American Academy 

who follow vocations almost entirely unknown to the Negro race fifty 
years ago, and to whom is largely entrusted the moral and intellectual, 
as well as the economic leadership of the group. Next to that comes 
the development of Negroes in business and in skilled trades, in which 
the race has built with fair success upon the foundation laid in 
slavery. 

Unskilled labor represents the great mass of Negroes at the 
close of the war, and in one sense, may be taken to indicate, today, 
the great mass of Negroes who appear to have stood still in the 
march of the race's progress. In a truer sense, however, this group 
of unskilled workers has shared something of the progress of the 
group. The kind of "unskilled labor" given by the Negro fifty years 
ago is quite different from that given today. Even as the standard 
in skilled trades has increased, so has the standard in unskilled labor 
increased. The Negro domestic servant of today has shown much im- 
provement over the old house servant, and one servant now often does 
the work of two or three of the older generation. The same is true in 
the case of labor in various other fields. Indeed, this increase in the 
efficiency standard has done much to raise the degree of respect given 
much unskilled work among Negroes, as in the case of waiters in 
hotels, janitors of large buildings, butlers, stewards and many kinds 
of "day labor." 

But one of the greatest changes has been the adapting of itself 
to the wages system. Much of the skilled and semi-skilled labor of 
the South had received wages before the Civil War, but very little of 
the unskilled labor. Working for regular wages required knowledge of 
the use of money, plaiming for expending the same, estimating the 
value of work and its relation to wages. Today, practically all city 
Negroes work for wages and the wages system is more and more in 
vogue upon the farms, to such an extent, at least that we are justified 
in saying that Negro labor has, during these fifty years, practically 
changed from a system of slavery to a system of wages. 

In fifty years, the Negro worker has decreased in illiteracy from 
90 per cent in 1860 to 30.4 in 1910. The preponderance of numbers, 
then on the side of illiteracy, is now on the side of literacy. Today 
there are more than 5,000,000 Negroes over 10 years of age who can 
read and write against 250,000 in 1863. Though there are still 2,200,- 
000 Negroes over 10 years of age who cannot read and wTito-, and who 
comprise a large part of the unskilled labor of the race, the learning 



The Negro in Unskilled Labor 28 

to read and write has made possible not only better efficiency in kinds 
of labor which Negroes already had, but also the entrance of new 
avenues of labor unknown to them before. 

Not only in intelligence has there been made progress, but also 
adaptation to a new condition. In all races, the unskilled laborer 
is the greatest sufferer, and the hardest to adapt himself. In 1863 
the Negro unskilled laborer was freed. Many of the farm laborers 
have entered the ranks of farm owners who now number more than 
250,000, while the unskilled group has gradually become more reliable. 
In the first years of the period under consideration, there was great 
alarm with regard to the regularity of work. The newly found free- 
dom meant to many Negroes opportunity for idleness and profligacy. 
When they did work, it was frequently for a few days in the week, 
and after pay day many were missing until their money was all or 
nearly all spent and they were under necessity to work. Vagrancy 
laws, check systems, credit systems, convict labor, peonage, etc., 
have not done as much to remedy this as have education and the 
awakening in these Negroes of new desires and opportunities for 
enjoyment. While there is a great deal still to be desired, there are 
now hundreds of thousands of Negroes who receive pay on Saturday 
night and return to work regularly on Monday morning, working 
six days in the week. 

The Negro has furnished, under a wage system, the bulk of the 
unskilled labor for the farmers of the South. For the past fifty years, 
by far the greater portion of the South's greatest product, cotton, has 
been made by the Negro laborer, while its railroads and streets, its 
sewers and waterworks have been largely constructed by Negroes. 
The wTiter was in his twentj'-first year before he had ever seen as 
many as a dozen white men at one time working on the streets, dig- 
ging sewers or laying railroads. Born and reared in the black belt 
of the South, he had only seen Negroes do this work and had come to 
believe it was their work until a visit to Chicago introduced him to 
his first large group of white sewer diggers. 

At the time the Negro was freed, there came another source of 
unskilled labor to the country, the foreign immigrant. For nearly 
fifty years, however, these immigrants made but little impression 
upon the Negro unskilled laborer of the South. 

The Negro has invaded the North, not only as a farm laborer and 
a domestic servant, but also as a laborer in public works, and hundreds 



24 



The AisnsTALs of the American Academy 



of miles of sewerage and of streets in our great cities are largely the 
labor of Negroes. The movement of the city has been led chiefly 
by the unskilled Negro from the farm as the Negro farm owner and 
operator had no need to go to the city. The growth of the modern 
city, by its need for unskilled labor, urged Negroes to crowd within 
its borders. It allured, for here was work, more steady wages, pay- 
able every week or fortnight, better protection of person and property, 
better schools, more excitement and enjoyment. 

Unskilled Negro labor has invaded the Northern cities within the 
past fifty years, and while it has been with extreme difficulty that the 
skilled laborer has found a place, the Negro unskilled laborer has been 
a welcome guest. In nearly every large city, special employment 
agencies have been opened in order to induce Negro workers from the 
South to come North, where there is abundant public work to be 
done, on the streets, sewers, filter plants, subways, railroads, etc. 
Negro hodcarriers have almost driven whites out of business in some 
cities, while as teamsters, firemen and street cleaners, they are more 
and more in dem.and. In the hotel business, the Negro is in demand 
in the large cities, as waiter, bellman, etc., while the Negro women are 
more and more in demand as domestic servants. 

The cities having the largest Negro population in 1910 were 
Washington, New York, New Orleans, Baltimore and Philadelphia. 
Their Negro population in 1860 and 1890 and 1910 is shoT^^l below: 



Washington. 
New York.. . 
New Orleans 
Baltimore. . . 
Philadelphia 
Chicago 



I860 



10,985 
12,472 
24,074 
27,S9S 
22,185 
955 



1890 



75,572 
23,601 
64,491 
67,104 
39,.371 
14,271 



1910 



94,446 
91,709 
89,262 
87,749 
84,459 
44,103 



New York has made a greater increase in its Negro population 
during the past twenty years than any large city and Philadelphia 
is next. This has been due to the urgency of its call for unskilled 
labor. 

In Philadelphia, of 21,128 males of gainful occupations, in 1900, 
13,726 were in domestic and personal service or nearly two-thirds of the 
whole; more than 7,500 of them were returned as "laborers not speci- 



The Negro in Unskilled Labor 25 

fied." Of the 14,095 female workers, 12,920 or more than 90 per cent 
were returned as domestic and personal servants; 10,522 being "ser- 
vants and waitresses." In New York, in 1900, out of 20,395 Negro 
males, 11,843 were in domestic service and out of the 16,114 females, 
14,586 were in domestic service. In Chicago, 8,381 of the 13,005 
Negro males in gainful occupations were in domestic service, and 
3,998 of the 4,921 females were similarly employed. These three 
cities are typical of the Negro at work in the large cities of the North. 

Next to domestic and personal service, which is chiefly, though 
not entirely unskilled labor, the Negro of the cities is employed in 
the unskilled occupations of trade and transportation. Taking Phila- 
delphia, as an example, we find the chief occupations of Negro males, 
who are employed in trade and transportation, as follows: Draymen, 
hackmen and teamsters, 1,957; porters and helpers, 921; messengers, 
errand and office boys, 346; hostlers, 270. These four trades represent 
more than 70 per cent of the Negroes in trade and transportation, 
while they represent only 2.7 per cent of the total men of the city in 
trade and transportation. 

It has been the Negro unskilled laborer who has given the 
heartiest support to the organization which has given an opportunity 
for the expression of the genius for organization and business within 
the race. The Negro church is the only Protestant church in America 
which has kept hold of the common laborer, and it is the largest and 
strongest organization among Negroes. The Negro secret societies, 
now strong and powerful, are the result of the cooperation of the Negro 
laborer. These societies are composed of Negro laborers who have 
given their heartiest support to all forms of Negro business, and have 
furnished by their patronage, the foundation upon which the Negro 
physicians and other professional men have risen. 

Women and children make up a large proportion of the unskilled 
workers among the Negroes. Of the 5,329,292 females reported by 
the census of 1900 as engaged in gainful occupations, 1,316,872 were 
Negro women. Negro females represented 34.8 per cent of the 
female wage earners of the United States, while they were only 11.4 
per cent of the total female population. These Negro females were 
engaged chiefly in domestic service and agriculture. There were 
509,687 Negro female agricultural laborers out of a total of 665,791 
female agricultural laborers in the country. The Negro women 
constituted 76 per cent of all female agricultural laborers in the 



26 The Annals of the American Academy 

country. There were 1,285,031 female servants and waitresses in 
1900 of whom 345,386 or 27 per cent were Negroes. Negro females 
numbered 218,228 or 65 per cent of the 335,711 laundresses; 82,443 
or 66 per cent of the 124,157 "laborers not specified." More than 40 
per cent of all the Negro females of the country over 10 years of 
age were at work, as against 16 per cent of all the white females. 

Of the Negro women at work 376,114 were married or 26 per 
cent of all the Negro married women, while only 3 per cent of the 
white married women of the country were at work. Of the married 
women at work, nearly 90 per cent were engaged as agricultural 
laborers, servants and waitresses, laundresses, and laborers not speci- 
fied, the four divisions of the census which comprise most Negro 
female workers. 

Between the ages of 10 and 15 years inclusive, there were 516,276 
Negro children at work, 319,057 boys and 197,219 girls, chiefly at 
unskilled occupations, the chief ones being as follows: 404,255 agri- 
cultural laborers, 45,436 "laborers not specified," 43,239 were ser- 
vants and waiters, a total of 492,930 or 95.5 per cent From 10 to 
15 years of age inclusive, 49.3 per cent of all the Negro boys of the 
country, and 30.6 per cent of the Negro girls were engaged in gain- 
ful occupations, chiefly unskilled, as against 22.5 per cent and 7 per 
cent for white boys and girls respectively. 

The last named item, showing that nearly half of the Negro 
boys and nearly a third of the Negro girls from 10 to 15 years of 
age are workers in unskilled occupations, should be compared with 
the following report from the same census: There were 548,661 
Negro boys of the ages of 10 to 14 inclusive. Only 277,846 of 
these were in school. Of the 1,092,020 Negro chilcken 10 years 
to 14 years inclusive, only 587,583 or 54 per cent were in school, 
while 504,437 or 46 per cent were out of school; and only 255,730, 
or 20 per cent of the total Negro boys of this age period, received 
six months of schooling. The remaining 866,290 Negro boys and 
girls 10 to 14 years, 86 per cent of the total of that age period, who 
got less than six months of schooling, and certainly the 504,437 who 
got no schooling at all during the census year, make up the great 
mass of the Negro unskilled laborers whose famihes in the future 
must be supported by the work of father, mother and child to the 
physical, moral and economic detriment of our country. 



The Negro in Unskilled Labor 27 

On the other hand, it has been chiefly the school which is gradu- 
ally raising the Negro from unskilled to skilled labor, and making 
even his unskilled service more productive, by enlarging his desires 
for consumption, increasing his foresight, and in general strengthen- 
ing his character. 



DEVELOPMENT IN THE TIDEWATER COUNTIES OF 

VIRGINIA 

By T. C. Walker, 
Gloucester Courthouse, Va. 

About fifty years ago occurred the emancipation of four million 
slaves. Prior to the general emancipation there were in each state, 
and perhaps in each county of the Southern States, a few who were 
called free Negroes. The only difference in the two classes of Negroes 
was that one was without task-masters, though subject to all the 
hardships of slavery save the task-master. A few of these free Negroes 
in each county owned a small acreage. At the close of the Civil War, 
as far as our records disclose, the free Negroes owned 537 acres of 
land in Gloucester County. This information is not claimed to be 
thoroughly accurate because of the destruction of the records during 
the Civil War. Even the United States Government, prior to 1880, 
as far as my information goes, had not seen fit to tabulate Negro 
ownership of land. 

In every clerk's office, if not destroyed, will be found copies of 
the United States census report for the year 1880. While these reports 
do not tabulate Negro ownership of land, they do with the aid of old 
citizens give such information as enables us to come to some definite 
conclusion as to land ownership by Negroes. This census report 
shows that in Gloucester County there were 195 Negroes who owned 
about 2300 acres of land. There were others who had begun to buy 
but whose titles were not perfected. The legislature of 1890-1891 
provided for the separate enlistment of property by the two races. 
Since that time we have been able to give some definite idea of the 
ownership of land in Virginia. Each year there has been a general 
increase in the ownership of land in all the Tidewater counties. The 
auditor's report of 1912 shows that there are 132,897 acres of land in 
Gloucester County. Of this amount the Negro holding has increased 
from 2,300 acres in 1880 to 19,772 acres in 1912, valued at $139,619 
with improvements valued at $122,444. Prior to 1880 there were 
no buildings and improvements worth counting on the land owned 

28 



Tidewater Counties of Virginia 29 

by Negroes. The great bulk of them Hved in one room log cabins. 
I have designated for convenience sake the following counties as 
" Tidewater" counties, viz., Accomac, Caroline, Charles Cit}^, Elizabeth 
City, Essex, Gloucester, Isle of Wight, James City, King and Queen, 
King William, Lancaster, Mathews, Middlesex, Nansemond, New 
Kent, Norfolk, Northampton, Northumberland, Richmond, Princess 
Anne, Southampton, Warwick, Westmoreland and York. At the 
close of the war it is fair to estimate in the absence of any definite 
record that the Negroes in these twenty-four counties owned less 
than 5,000 acres of land. Their holdings have increased during 
this period of fifty years from about 5,000 acres, whose estimated 
value with improvements was less than $70,000, to 421,465 acres, 
whose value with improvements according to the auditor, is $4,282,- 
947. According to the auditor of Virginia for 1912 the Negroes 
own in the whole state 1,629,626 acres valued at $8,664,625, and 
the total value of Negro farm lands in Virginia with improvements 
thereon is $14,156,757. 

These farm lands are increasing in value year by year due to 
the increased knowledge of agriculture by the great bulk of Negroes. 
The census reports for 1900 show that there were 44,834 Negro 
farmers in the state. Of this number 26,566 owned their lands 
while 17,030 were renters. The census of 1910 tells us there were 
48,114 Negro farmers in the state. Of this number 32,228 owned 
their farms while 15,706 rented. Of these 32,228 farms, 26,200 are 
free of mortgage or debt, leaving but 5,609 mortgaged. There may 
be some discrepancy in the value as estimated by the census bureau 
and that by the auditor of public accounts. The auditor fixes his 
value for taxation and the Negro holdings are put upon the same 
footing with white holdings to evade taxation, while the census 
bureau fixes its basis of valuation by the actual observation of the 
enumerators as they go upon those farms. 

The period from 1900 to 1910, according to the census bureau, 
shows that the increase of Negro farm owners is 21.3 per cent. It 
is also shown that 67 per cent of the Negro farmers of Virginia 
own their farms while the census of 1900 shows 59.3 per cent. 
Gloucester County, for the size of its acreage and Negro population 
has perhaps the largest number of Negro land owners of any one 
county in the state. We have shown that in 1880 there were 195 
while today there are 1895 Negro land owners. 



30 The Annals of the American Academy 

The greatest agency employed in the development of the Tide- 
water counties, in fact of the state of Virginia, in educational and mate- 
rial conditions, is the Hampton Normal School located at Hampton, 
Va. For forty or more years this school has been sending out its 
graduates until every county in the Tidewater section, and many 
other counties in the state, have Hampton graduates with the 
Hampton spirit. They go forth to make peace and cultivate the 
most friendly feeling between the races. Another branch of this 
agency now employed in the development of the soil is Hampton's 
direct agents and graduates who live among the people, and the 
cooperative demonstration farm work as carried on in cooperation 
with the Hampton School and the United States Department of 
Agriculture. Mr. J. B. Pierce, a Hampton graduate, is the director 
of the demonstration work in Virginia. 

Nothing could show progress more than the increased output 
of farm products, the accumulation of improved farm implements 
and improved stock. The outgrowth of this development is the 
great number of bank deposits in the banks of Tidewater, especially 
those located in the rural districts. I am informed that the Negroes 
of Gloucester County have on savings deposits in the bank at Glouces- 
ter Court House more than $20,000, not to say anything about the 
running accounts in the two l^anks in the county. In 1880 there 
was not a Negro in Gloucester depositing in any bank and few 
in all Tidewater, Va. The increase in the accumulation of town 
and city property has followed close in the wake of the rural sec- 
tions. In 1880 they owned few town or city lots. Today the town 
lots with improvements are valued at $3,134,008, while the city 
lots are valued at $3,164,272, with improvements valued at $5,140,- 
335. At the close of the war it is fair to presume, in the absence 
of records, that the entire Negro population of Virginia did not 
pay taxes on $1,000,000 worth of property; today, according to the 
auchtor, they pay taxes on real property valued at $25,595,402. I 
have referred to the possible discrepancy as estimated l^y the state 
and census bureaus. The census bureau for 1910 puts the value of 
all farms owned by Negroes in Virginia at $28,059,538, while the 
auditor, as just stated, collects from the Negroes taxes on realty 
valued at $25,595,402. 

For the comforts of life and as a mark of increased civilization 
the personal property owned by any race is a fair test. Fifty years 



Tidewater Counties of Virginia 31 

ago the Negroes of these Tidewater counties owned but httle per- 
sonal property. Their furniture consisted of old chests, boxes and 
roughly made bureaus, bedsteads and the like. Today such prop- 
erty as they then had, save, perhaps, one feather bed and two pil- 
lows usually held by each family, would not be assessed at any 
value. The character of personal property, such as house furniture, 
cooking utensils and the like, now possessed by them, is such as 
is produced in some of the best factories of the country. Many 
of these homes have in them up-to-date musical instruments. Pleas- 
ure carriages and buggies are among the advanced acquisitions. It 
is well-nigh impossible to give accurately the value of the personal 
property year by year. I have taken the auditor's report for 1904 
as the first basis of improvement in the acquisition of personal 
property. By this report it will be seen that the Negroes of these 
twenty-four counties pay taxes on personal property valued at 
$1,771,358. The auditor's report for 1912 shows that the Negroes in 
these 24 counties paid over to the state $20,818.24, the amount from 
taxes assessed on personal property. 

We hear a great deal about the race problem. The problem 
becomes more acute as race prejudice increases. The Negroes of 
these Tidewater counties, in fact all over the state, have been greatly 
encouraged in their efforts to accumulate property and to l^ecome 
substantial citizens by the best element of native white people. 
The encouragement given by the better element of the white people 
has meant more to the Negro than it is possible to estimate. I 
do not mean by this that the Negro has been accorded all of his 
rights. With the same friendly feeling and the same anxiety on 
the part of the better element of white people to see the Negro 
have fair play as to home making and character building, there is 
a great future for further development of these Tidewater counties. 



THE NEGRO AND THE mMIGRANT IN THE TWO 

AMERICAS 

AN INTER NATIONAL ASPECT OF THE COLOR PROBLEM 

By James B. Clarke, 
New York City. 

To the colored man of foreign birth, and especially of Latin- 
American origin, who lands on American shores fifty years after the 
issuance of the emancipation proclamation, the keenness of racial anti- 
pathy and the persistence of statutory discrimination in various 
states against persons of African descent form a feature of American 
life as puzzling in its raison d'etre as it is annoying and unpleasant in 
its operation. "Why is it," asked the distinctly Negroid officers and 
sailors of the Brazilian dreadnaught which recently visited this country, 
"that in the street cars at Norfolk we had to be separated from our 
white or white Indian fellows and friends? In New York the petty 
officers of our ship were invited to an entertaimnent by the men of 
similar rating on an American battleship and the waiters at the hotel 
refused to serve some of our men who were black. We cannot under- 
stand these things." 

Small wonder that the foreign visitors should have evinced sur- 
prise at this disagreeable feature of an otherwise memorably pleasant 
reception in the United States of America. It is hardly twenty-five 
years since the last vestiges of slavery were removed from the then 
infant United States of Brazil, but that country knows no distinction 
of color or race. Law and custom guarantee equal opportunity to 
all citizens in every field of usefulness to the republic, and some of 
the most distinguished presidents, to say nothing of lesser officials, 
have been men of Negro blood. In this country, on the other hand, 
where people have better opportunities for education and ought to 
be and claim to be more enlightened and humane than the peoples 
to the south, fifty years after a most destructive war which is supposed 
to have abolished all distinctions in citizenship, racial prejudice pur- 
sues with a most relentless and intolerant hatred the faintest trace 

32 



Negro and Immigrant in the Two Americas 33 

of African blood and even over-rides the common demands of inter- 
national courtesy and renders impossible the attainment of that Pan- 
American Union, based on genuine good-will and mutual respect, which 
the republic of the north is now so anxious to form. 

The characteristic point of view of the Latin- American with regard 
to the diverse constituent elements in the population of his country 
is that racial considerations shall not operate to deprive a citizen of 
the opportunity of useful service to his country nor to rob him of the 
recognition due to such service. No man is assumed to be superior 
or inferior to any other man because of the color of his grandmother's 
skin. Every man who demonstrates his worth commands and receives 
the respect and appreciation of his fellows. Political and economic 
difficulties and dissensions there may be, but race is not a controlling 
factor in governmental policy and in the everyday conduct of the 
people. The Indian, Benito Juarez, proved himself at least a more 
enduring ruler of Mexico than did the white man, Madero, and, what- 
ever else may be said of Porfirio Diaz, the fact of his Indian blood has 
never been held up as a reproach against him by such pure whites 
as live in the country of the Aztecs. Nor is the Spanish-American 
mind capable of denying to men of Negro blood the recognition to 
which their abilities entitle them. Despite northern influence, the 
name of the mulatto Maceo is yet revered with that of Maximo 
Gomez, of doubtful whiteness, as a national hero of Cuba, and Juan 
Gualberto Gomez is still one of the most honored patriots of the first 
American protectorate. In countries where there is now little, if 
any, trace of Negro blood in the population, there is no tendency 
to forget the services of colored men in the past. Buenos Ayres is 
adorned with a statue of Falucho, a Negro soldier, and the Govern- 
ment of Venezuela has just dedicated in Caracas a monument to 
Alexandre Potion, the mulatto president of Haiti whose aid, in men 
and money, to Simon Bolivar at the most critical moment in the for- 
tunes of the Libertador led to the independence of the vast region 
which now comprises the republics of Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, 
Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru. Thus, at a time when the Monroe 
Doctrine could not have been enforced by the nation which gave 
the name of its president to Great Britain's proposal for a joint 
Anglo-American recognition of the new republics, the earliest formed 
and last recognized of these nations, peopled by men who are by law 
and custom invariably "inferior" to white men in North America, 



34 The Annals of the American Academy 

Haiti, the Black Republic, had already struck the most vital blow at 
Spanish rule in America and paved the way for the present dominant 
position of the United States in the Western Hemisphere. 

Knowing these facts, it is not surprising that white men in Latin- 
America, and there are more of them than Anglo-Saxon America is 
inclined to think, do not regard the possession, real or suspected, of 
Negro blood as a crime punishable with eternal and irrevocable 
exclusion from everything that savors of honorable service and due 
consideration in one's country. If these facts were also known or 
acknowledged by white men between the Gulf of Mexico and the 
Great Lakes, it is possible that the Brazilian visitors would have been 
spared the dread of terrors unseen and, for them, perhaps non-existent ; 
but nevertheless, well fomided on their observation of the gulf that 
separates the native white from the non-white of North America. 
"If I went into one of these restaurants along Broadway," asked the 
son of a Portuguese from the Azores, whose ability has won him a 
position of trust and responsibility as an officer in the navy of his 
colored mother's country, "would they serve me as they would in 
Paris or Newcastle-on-Tyne or Rio de Janeiro?" The only way to 
secure an answer to such a question, would, of course, be to enter 
the restaurant and order food. The response would perhaps be in 
the negative, but in any case it would most likely be made by a man 
who was not himself a native of this country, who had not become 
thoroughly familiar with the language and had not thought it neces- 
sary to relinquish his allegiance to some European monarch in order 
to enjoy the benefits of residence in a country which is, to him, free. 
For a most important element in the maintenance of anti-Negro feel- 
ing in this country since the Civil War is the constant and ever- 
increasing stream of immigration from Europe, 

Fifty years ago, the waiter in New York and in many other 
Northern cities was usually a man of color, as was the barber, the 
coachman, the caterer or the gardener. True enough, he had little 
opportunity to rise above such menial occupation, but with the growth 
of the humanitarian, if rather apologetic, attitude toward the Negro 
engendered by the great conflict which had brought about the verbal 
abolition of slavery in the states where it then existed, it is possible 
that the Negro's status in New York and the other free states would 
have been rapidly and permanently improved, industrially as well as in 
civic recognition, had not the current of immigration, which had been 



Negro and Immigrant in the Two Americas 35 

retarded for a decade or two during the Civil War and the preceding 
agitation, started with renewed force on the cessation of the conflict. 
The newcomer from Europe had to be provided for. Being more 
suited to the climate and conditions of life in the Northern States 
and at the same time possessing greater skill and experience, not only 
in the menial employments which had engaged the Negroes, but also 
in the trades and industries in which the freedmen had acquired during 
slavery a rudimentary foundation, the European immigrant soon out- 
stripped his Negro rival for the employment and the respect of the 
American in the Northern States. With his economic position thus 
secured, the new American, knowing little or nothing of the terrible 
struggle which had preceded his coming, looked and still looks upon 
the Negro with the contemptuous eye of an easy victor over a hope- 
lessly outnumbered, weak and incompetent foe. I do not pretend to 
say that the immigrant is not often to be found among those who keep 
alive the torch of liberty and justice in America, but I do believe that 
the continuance of racial hatred in the North is traceable to the 
Europeans whose lack of contact with the Negro has been exploited 
and played upon by native whites who have nothing to think and talk 
about but an exaggerated idea of the virtues and capacities of the 
Anglo-Saxon race. 

In the Southern States where, although there is little direct im- 
migration, the poor white population, particularly in the southwest, 
has been largely increased by recruits from the Americanized im- 
migrant population of the North, the Negro, by reason of his numbers, 
has been able to make a better showing in industry. This condition 
is in no small measure due to the fact that the ruling classes prefer 
the Negro to the immigrant. But, whatever the reason, the black 
people still hold their own and, despite efforts to cheek them, they 
are constantly securing a firmer footing in the industries of the South. 
For the present at least, the European immigrant is not likely to become 
a dangerous economic menace to the Negro in the South. Some few 
years ago an attempt to start a line of steamers transporting European 
settlers from Hamburg to Charleston met with disastrous failure. 
Experiments with Italian agriculturists in Mississippi and elsewhere 
have not influenced the tendency of the Negro to become a land- 
owner, for The Progressive Farmer, a southern agricultural organ, has 
found it necessary to start a campaign for the passage of laws to 
check the encroachment of Negroes upon territory occupied by white 
farmers. 



36 The Annals of the American Academy 

Without the hindrance of artificial restrictions, the effect of 
which cannot be permanent, the position of the Negro in the agri- 
culture of the Southern States seems to be assured. Present tendencies 
in other industries in these states, and it is only in these that the Negro 
is ever likely to be an important economic factor, seem to guarantee 
the black man "the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" 
in equal security with the white man. In the mining regions of Alabama 
and Tennessee the proprietors of mines, with the aid of aspirants to 
political honors, have been in the habit of fomenting race prejudice as 
a means of nullifying the power of union labor by forcing the men to 
form racial unions and by using the one as a club to suppress the other 
group in case of a strike. In Alabama two years ago the governor, 
without a shade of legal authority, ordered the militia to raze a 
strike camp just as the miners were nearing success, because the 
promiscuous arrangement of the tents occupied by white and colored 
people did not meet with the approval of a public opinion which cared 
nothing about the color of the men while in the mines. The miners 
themselves had very different ideas and it is probable that experiences 
of this kind will force them to a fearless recognition of the unity and 
identity of the interests of labor. The SociaUst party and the I. W. W. 
have done much for the admission of colored men to labor unions and 
the I. W, "W. has met with notable success in this respect in the lumber 
camps of Louisiana. In many other important industries as, for in- 
stance, ship-carpentry at Savannah and other ports, colored men are 
admitted into the unions with white men. Southern cotton mills 
are beginning to employ Negro labor. As a result of the recent anti- 
Japanese agitation, emploj^ers and workmen alike have come to regard 
the Negro as the lesser of two evils and, in railroad construction 
in several places in the West and Northwest, black men have been 
engaged to replace the oriental laborers. During the past half cen- 
tury, the dominant, if unexpressed, idea in the mind of the average 
white man toward the colored man who sought the right to earn his 
bread anywhere in this country was that he ought to be crushed and 
eliminated if his labor in any way savored of competition with the 
white man. But with the growing recognition of the inter-dependence 
of the races and the increased tolerance of labor unions toward black 
men, competition between Negroes and immigrants tends to give way 
to cooperation between black men and white all over the countr^^ 

This is the condition that exists in Brazil, where the free people 



Negro and Immigrant in the Two Americas 37 

of color, both on account of their numbers and of their abihty, had 
secured a footing from which they could not be shaken by an immigra- 
tion which has not been so large or so different in origin and standards 
of life from the native worker as has been the case with the immigrant 
and the Negro in North America. When the center of American 
interests is transferred from considerations of race to the recognition 
of those surer standards of birth, education and ideals, by which alone 
citizenship is to be adjudged, racial prejudice against the Negro and 
Negroid will become as insignificant in Anglo-Saxon America as it is 
rare in Latin-America. Toward this end the Negro and the immigrant 
should strive by removing the barriers of color and of mutual fear 
or distrust which separate them, in order to make possible the reali- 
zation of the new and really United States of North America, without 
which there can be no union of all America. 



THE TENANT SYSTEM AND SOME CHANGES SINCE 

EMANCIPATION 

By Thomas J. Edwards, 
Supervisor of Colored Public Schools of Tallapoosa County, Dadeville, Ala. 

The close of the Civil War marked a great change in the labor 
system upon the plantation. The Negroes who were held and con- 
sidered as property of masters previous to emancipation were now 
free men, having as their principal asset good conditioned bodies. The 
matter of serious import which confronted these simple, but strong, 
people was the task of making a living in a country devastated by war. 
Former masters M^ere confronted with problems equally as difficult as 
those confronting the former slaves. These masters had been deprived 
of what represented both labor and property; war had left them for 
the most part landowners, and nothing more. The task of starting 
a new life was equally difficult for both concerned — the landlord with 
land and accessories, the freed man with physical strength and a 
slave's experience. The first two or three years after the war, were, 
therefore, a period of readjustment between land and labor under new 
and trying conditions. 

Immediately after the Civil War through the share-cropping, 
wage-earning and standing-wage S3^stem, labor was gradually adjusted 
to the soil. According to the readiness with which landlords had or 
could secure means, all these three systems were more or less used at 
the same time. In many cases, as it is today, the wage-earning and 
the share-cropping systems existed simultaneously on the same planta- 
tion, while on the smaller plantations "croppers" up with their crops 
would serve in the place of earners in assisting those behind with crops 
on the same plantation. When croppers served as wage hands their 
pay like other expenses was deducted from the croppers' share in the 
crops. 

The share-cropping and the wage-earning systems are %vith us 
still, but the standing-wage system which was originated immediately 
after the Civil War is not now in vogue. The method of work got its 
name, the standing-wage-system, because "hands" worked for a period 

38 



The Tenant System 39 

of six months or a year, before a complete settlement was made. 
Rations were issued weekly or monthly. The wage paid standing- 
wage hands was $50, $75 and $100 a year. This system originated 
with the motive of holding labor to the soil until end of crop. 

That which seems to be a modified form of the old standing-wage 
system is the part-standing-wage system which exists today in many 
black belt countries in the South. Under this system a hand receives 
a monthly wage, which is seldom less than $5 or over $7. In addition 
to the wages paid in money he is given three or four acres of land to 
cultivate for his own use as a further compensation for his service. 
In cultivating this plot of three or four acres the "hand" is given the 
use of his employer's team and farming implements on Saturday 
when most of the work for himself is done. It is because the "hand" 
receives part of his wages in monthly cash payments and the remainder 
in a harvested crop that this system is called the part standing-wage 
system. The sj^stem of work appeals more to the older people than 
the young, so it is reasonable to suppose that it too will shortly pass 
away. It is evident that the chief element in the part standing-wage 
system is keeping uncertain labor connected principally as a wage- 
hand to a larger plantation system. 

The four-day plan of cropping had even a shorter life than the 
standing- wage system. Under this system the "hand" worked four 
days for the landlord who in turn furnished him with land, stock, 
feed for stock and farming implements, with which to cultivate a 
farm for himself the remaining two days. This system was quite 
advantageous to the "hand" providing he had a family large enough 
to do hoe-work upon his owm farm while he worked four days for the 
landlord. In this system a weekly ration was issued simply to the 
"hand" or hands who worked four days. In case there were other 
members of the family, other arrangements were made according to 
ability to give service upon the plantation or around the landlord's 
home. It is probable that the system died, because the landlord's 
profits were small and the ''hand" crops were poor. 

That which has been said of the standing and the part standing- 
wage systems and the four-day plan for cropping has been sufficient 
to throw some light on the attempt in early days succeeding Civil 
War toward adjusting labor and land. No system seems to have a 
more permanent effect than what is known today as the share- 
cropping system. For many years after the Civil War, work on 



40 The Annals of the American Academy 

shares had a very different meaning from that which it bears today. 
Crops were cultivated for the one-fifth, one-fourth, two-fifths and 
one-third. In most cases when the cropper worked for any fractional 
part below one-third he received a part ration. Dividing crops into 
smaller fractional parts than one-half was at that time considered 
very reasonable by those who had served years in bondage without 
pay and whose demands for education and better methods of living 
had no likeness in comparison to what they are today. It has been 
less than a decade since the wants of each individual farmer and his 
family have so increased and the competition between landlords in 
holding labor upon their plantation has grown so keen that the frac- 
tional part gradually increased, until now working on shares means 
generally all over the Southland that at harvesting time that crop will 
be halved between landlord and cropper. 

The word "crops" as used in verbal or Avritten contracts has par- 
ticular reference to cotton and corn. Everything raised behind the 
mule, except that raised on the one acre allowed for the garden and 
house spot, is subject to division. According to the terms of the con- 
tract, the landlord furnishes the cropper the land on which the crops 
are cultivated, and farming implements, plows, scooters, sweeps, 
stock and feed for the stock; in return for which the landlord is to 
have one-half of the entire crop made by the cropper and his hands. 
In consideration "of the above" the share cropper agrees to furnish 
and feed at the command of the landlord, all labor necessary to cul- 
tivate and harvest the crop and take good care, of all stock implements 
intrusted to his care. In the event of failing properly to cultivate the 
crops he authorizes the landlord to hire what labor he may deem 
necessary to work the crop, and to deduct the cost of this labor from 
the cropper's half of the crops. ' 

The landlord permits the steady, careful and thoughtful crop- 
per to use his mule and buggy on Sundays, and use the farming 
implements in the cultivation of his garden or very small plot of 
watermelons and sugar cane. When the main crops, cotton and 
corn, are not in need of work, the cropper has time to cultivate his 
garden, and to do odd jobs on his house, fences and stables if there 
are any. The landlord usually provides the cropper with the avail- 
able vacant house of one, two, three or even four rooms as the case 
may be. The size of the house, and accommodations in barn and 
stable readily give immediate advantage to landlord, and cropper. 



The Tenant System 41 

It is not altogether true that the landlord keeps the stock and 
vehicles in his home lot. These are in most cases left to the care 
and keeping of the cropper if he be in possession of suitable stables 
and lots. 

The amount of supervision a cropper receives from the land- 
lord depends largely upon how successfully he keeps his crops (espe- 
cially cotton) worked up. If he gets behind with his "crops" the 
landlord may compel every member of the cropper's family, and 
even secure members from other families upon the plantation, to 
clean out the crops. In case the landlord does secure others, out- 
side of the cropper's family to assist with the crops, the landlord 
avails himself of the clause in the contract which permits him to 
hire the labor necessary to work the "crops" and to charge the 
cost of the labor to the cropper's half of the "crop." 

As a rule the share cropper makes more to the mule than other 
classes of farmers. The reasons are as follows: (1) He is given the 
best plot of land upon which to make his "crops" because the larger 
the "crops" the more satisfactory will be results for both landlord 
and cropper. (2) In most cases supervision is very close, which is 
most natural since the share-cropping system involves so much capital 
and risk from the landlord. Here we find a condition not unlike 
that in every phase of occupation, an effort to get as large return 
as possible for capital invested. 

Crops are usually divided in the presence of the landlord, dur- 
ing or immediately after harvesting time. The cropper gets as his 
share one-half of the lint cotton and cotton seed, one-half of the corn 
and corn-fodder, and one-half of the field peas. All products raised 
on the house spot acre come to the cropper, undivided. Though the 
terms in the contract consider everything raised behind the mule 
subject to division, yet sugar cane, sweet potatoes and watermelons 
may not be divided providing the landlord furnished neither fer- 
tilizer nor seeds for planting. 

Upon almost every plantation of considerable extent some women 
share-croppers are usuall}^ found. They are as a rule widows with 
children large enough to help out with the farm work. These crop- 
pers are most common in black-belt countries, where the large plan- 
tation systems prevail. For example, one of these widow share- 
croppers of Macon County, assisted by her two sons, one thirteen, 
and the other eighteen years old, during the bad cotton crop year 



42 The Annals of the American Academy 

of 1909, made thirteen bales to her one plow. Another whose hus- 
band died leaving a debt of $125, and three children to care for, 
worked on shares during the same bad year, made ten bales of cotton 
to her plow, paid her debts, her expenses of living while making 
the crop, including half of the cost of the fertilizer used upon her 
farm, and saved $150. The latter widow realizing the responsibility 
upon her of debt and care of children was advanced only $35 which 
was used in purchasing food. The success of these two widows does 
not indicate by any means that women share-croppers are always 
successful, but it does show that under this system, because of land- 
lords' supervision, women maj'^ succeed as well as men, providing 
they can furnish the labor. 

As a rule the contract which explains the terms by which crops 
are to be cultivated and divided makes no provision for the cropper's 
advances or food; nor any disposition of the commercial fertilizer 
of which the cropper pays for half out of his half of the crops when 
made and divided. Terms for advances as a rule are made outside 
of the crop-contract. Advances in money may be issued directly 
through a banker with orders from the landlord permitting the 
cropper to have certain amounts at stated times. Usually the land- 
lord and the cropper agree upon a lump sum of $35, $50, $100 or 
$200. According to the cropper's needs, this money is issued in 
monthly installments of $8, $9, $10, $15, and $20. Of course the 
cropper does not receive the lump sum agreed upon at the time 
the food-contract is made for the following reasons: (1) the cropper 
might use his money unwisely and consequently be obliged to call 
upon the landlord to continue, or finish the crop; and (2) by holding 
it the landlord has money at his disposal for cultivating the crops 
if the head of the family becomes disabled, or does not stay to 
carry out his contract. Advances are often made through a mer- 
chant-landlord of a large plantation who may have a store of such 
necessities as will meet the demand of tenants upon the plantation. 
In case the landlord does not own a store, orders are given by the 
landlord to some merchant of a small town or village, or to the 
merchant-landlord near, permitting the cropper to have certain 
amounts of merchandise at stated times during farming season. In 
such a case the landlord is directly responsible to the merchant for 
the merchandise which the cropper receives. The interest charged 
on borrowed cash varies from 10 to 15 per cent, but in many cases 



The Tenant System 43 

has been known to be considerably more. Furthermore, the inter- 
est on merchandise has been known to double itself notwithstanding 
the fact that the cropper pays a yearly interest upon the lump sum 
agreed upon for a cropping season of six or seven months, he receives 
his allotments of cash or merchandise in monthly installments. 

The cropper who for one reason or another becomes dissatisfied 
and desires to transfer his service and that of his family from one 
landlord to another, has been known to do so by getting the land- 
lord he wishes to serve to pay to the one he previously served the 
amount of debt the cropper owes. In case the agreement is made 
the cropper comes under contract of a new master bringing an inter- 
est-bearing debt. The amount paid in transfering croppers has been 
known to range from $25 to $200. 

The cropper apart from a plantation is, of course, free from 
close supervision. He is more aggressive and trustworthy than the 
plantation cropper described above, and, therefore, is left largely 
to contract his own affairs. He may have been in previous years 
a renter who, through some misfortune, such as losing a mule, pre- 
fers working on halves until he can get sufficiently strong to rent 
again. In case this type of cropper owns a mule, the landlord rents 
it, as a rule, not by paying cash money but by making some agree- 
ment with the cropper equivalent to what a season's rent for one 
mule would be. If the cropper has feed for his own mule an agree- 
ment between landlord and cropper is fixed in some way by the 
landlord maldng allowances in some side crop, such as watermelons, 
sweet potatoes or sugar cane. It is the type of cropper described 
above that is on the verge of becoming a renter in case his crop 
turns out to be good. 

Regardless of the success croppers may make with their crops, 
while working on shares, there is a burning desire among them for 
less supervision and more freedom in managing their own affairs. 
The opportunity of becoming renters offers a means of satisfying 
such a desire, and very often a cropper remains upon the same plan- 
tation, occupies the same house and rents the same land, and quietly 
transfers from cropper to renter without the least difficulty. 

It is reasonable that in early years succeeding the Civil War 
both share-croppers and renters existed; but it is still more reason- 
able that renters were fewer in number, since renting required an 
accumulation of capital, such as, a mule, paid or partly paid for. 



44 The Annals of the American Academy 

some feed for the mule, wagon and farming implements. As the 
years passed croppers went into the renting class, first, because they 
desired the management of their business in full; and, secondly, 
because the landlords were just as willing to free themselves from 
the close oversight of the cropper's affairs as the cropper was to be 
free. We have no figures to indicate just how rapid the transi- 
tion into the renting class was, until the decade embracing 1890 
and 1900. In this connection figures of Macon County, Ala., will 
be used. According to the agricultural census of 1900, the only 
census in which white and colored renters and share-croppers were 
taken separately the number of colored renters in Macon County 
was 2,097. The number of colored share-croppers was 760. The 
preceding census (1890) shows white and colored renters taken to- 
gether to be 1068, and white and colored share croppers together 
to be 1,113. In 1900 the colored renters had increased nearly 
half of both white and colored renters for 1890. The colored share 
croppers of 1900 had decreased over one-third of both white and 
colored croppers in the same time. The increase of colored renters 
in 1900 over white and colored renters in 1890 in this one county 
gives some idea of the rapid change into the renting class. 

A quarter of a century ago, one kind of renter was commonly 
found upon large plantations where wage-hands and share-croppers 
were employed. He was subject to the same plantation manage- 
ment as other classes upon the plantation. He received the same 
supervision, plowed, cultivated, harvested, and received advances 
in the same manner as the share-cropper. When his crops were 
behind, the landlord employed hands, cleaned out the crop while 
the renter stood the expenses. The only difference between the 
renter and the share-cropper was that the renter crops were not 
divided; and to the renter belonged whatever remained after rent, 
expenses of farming implements, cleaning out the crops and living 
were deducted. Under the nominal rent system more renters came 
out behind than ahead in their crops. In many of the black belt 
counties of the South, where changes for good in the plantation 
system occur slowly, this type of renter is found today. 

The renter of today is a more independent type. He is respon- 
sible to the landlord for the rent of the land only in case he secures 
"advances" from his landlord. In many cases he sub-rents portions 
of his rented land receiving an amount little more than sufficient to 



The Tenant System 45 

pay the landlord's rent. It is often the case that this type of renter 
owns from three to six mules, some or all of which are mortgaged 
and through this means of mortgaging his stock he receives 
"advances." 

It is the desire of landlords to rent their land without the risk 
of giving "advances," or the care of close supervision. In other 
words, it is as much the desire, and as much to the advantage, of 
the landlord to get rent or interest on the money envolved in land 
with least trouble, as it is the renter's desire to advance himself, 
and enjoy the privilege of managing his business affairs. The pres- 
ent trend of renting conditions — conditions which reheve the land- 
lord of responsibilities and which put upon the renter more responsi- 
bihties — is in this direction. 

Two decades ago the most common way the landlord or mer- 
chant secured himself against losses was by taking a Hen on crops. 
The hen entitled the landlord to hold in possession all, or part of 
a renter's crop until all claims were paid. The lien was made not 
only upon growing crops, but often upon unplanted crops as well. 
If through the crop lien, the landlord's claim was not settled in one 
season it was continued into the next. The old crop lien system 
with all of its force and meaning has apparently changed in meaning 
and form in some indescribable ways and since the renter has grad- 
ually come into possession of personal property, money is secured 
for farming by making notes and mortgages upon that property. 
All these may have some features of the crop lien system, but do 
not have the name. 

The managing ability of the average Negro renter is limited 
by the three mule farm. His yield and profit per plow decrease as 
the number of his plows increases. For example, a farmer made 
twelve bales with one plow; with two plows he made seven bales, 
and with three plows he made five and one-half bales to the plow. 
This was barely enough to cover the expense of three plows. Thus 
this farmer increased his acreage and expense while his knowledge 
of business and improved methods of farming remained the same. 

The rent claims are first settled, and in most cases paid in 
cotton. The rent paid for a farm of 25 or 30 acres ranges from 1| 
to 2 bales of lint cotton. Paying rent in money is quite common 
in some sections. When money is paid as rent for a farm of one 
mule it ranges from $75 to $100. There are two advantages in the 



46 The Annals of the American Academy 

payment of re»t in money: first, the landlord receives a fixed rent 
for his land regardless of fluctuation in cotton prices; and, secondly, 
the renter gains in money as long as cotton remains at a good 
selling price. 

This paper has been devoted principally to the discussion of 
the share-cropper and the renter because these classes have a rela- 
tion with the soil and the plantation permanent enough to observe 
changes. It is evident that the daily, weekly, and monthly wage- 
earners have some influence upon the plantation system which is 
not discussed here. 



WORK OF THE COMMISSION OF SOUTHERN UNIVERSI- 
TIES ON THE RACE QUESTION 

By Charles Hillman Brough, Ph.D., 

Professor of Economics and Sociology, University of Arkansas; Chairman, 
Commission of Southern Universities on the Race Question. 

Unquestionably the problem of the economic, social, hygienic, 
educational, moral, and civic uplift of the Negro race is at present 
challenging the best thought of Southern scholars and philanthro- 
pists, as perhaps no other problem is. 

There are now many agencies in the South trying to find a 
method of helping the Negro get a larger share of the fruits of his 
toil and enabling him to live his life more abundantly and more 
harmoniously with the Southern white man. The first and, per- 
haps, the most potent of these agencies is the Commission on South- 
ern Race Questions, organized by Dr. James H. Dillard, of New 
Orleans, president and director of the Anna T. Jeanes Foundation, 
at the First Southern Sociological Congress, which met in Nashville, 
Tenn., May 7 to 10, 1912. The membership of this commission is 
as follows: W. S. Sutton, dean and professor of education. Univer- 
sity of Texas; James E. Doster, dean of the School of Education, 
University of Alabama; James M. Parr, vice-president and professor 
of English, University of Florida; R. H. J. DeLoach, professor of 
cotton industry. University of Florida; W. O. Scroggs, professor of 
economics and sociology. University of Louisiana; W. D. Hedleston 
professor of ethics and sociology, University of Mississippi; Charles 
W. Bain, professor of Greek, University of North Carolina; Josiah 
Morse, professor of philosophy, University of South Carolina; James 
D. Hoskins, dean and professor of history and economics. University 
of Tennessee; William M. Hunley, adjunct professor of political 
science. University of Virginia; Charles Hillman Brough, professor 
of economics and sociology, University of Arkansas. Dr. Brough 
is chairman of the commission and Professor Hunley secretary. 

At its first meeting at Nashville, Dr. Dillard outlined his pur- 
pose in calling such a body of teachers together. He significantly 

47 



48 The Annals of the American Academy 

called attention to the fact that the leadership of state universities 
in the South is coming to be more and more vital to the interests 
of the people; that they have been criticised often for apparent 
indifference to the Negro question, and that not only stimulation, 
but also actual leadership, was expected of the commission. 

After an informal discussion it was decided to hold the next 
meeting at Athens, Ga., December 19, 1912, when each member 
was expected to present a plan. Practically all of the members of 
the commission were in attendance on this meeting, which convened 
in the library room of the historic and antebellum University of 
Georgia. Additional value was given to the deliberations of the com- 
mission by the presence and active participation of Chancellor Bar- 
row, of the University of Georgia, and Chancellor Kincannon, of 
the University of Mississippi. The most important business trans- 
acted at this meeting was the delegation by the chairman of spe- 
cific work to special committees, which are to report next December 
at Richmond, Va. The composition of these committees is as fol- 
lows : 

Educatio7i — Sutton, chairman; Farr, Doster. 

Economic — DeLoach, chairman; Hoskins, Brough. 

Hygiene — Morse, chairman; Hedleston, Bain. 

Civic — Scroggs, chairman; Hunley, Sutton. 

Religious — Doster, chairman; Hedleston, Morse. 

Race Adjustment — Farr, chairman; Bain, Hunley. 

Executive — Brough, chairman; Farr, and Hunle}^, Secretary. 

Advisory — Dillard, chairman; Chancellor Barrow, of Georgia, 
and President Mitchell, South Carolina. 

A number of the members of these committees submitted pre- 
liminary reports at the second sociological congress, which met in 
Atlanta, Ga., the latter part of last April. The work already done 
presages the most scientific and impartial study of the Negro prob- 
lem, with the ideal of constructive helpfulness, that has yet been 
attempted. 

As one of the results of the organization of this commission a 
number of students, notably at the University of Virginia and the 
University of Georgia, began last fall a systematic study of the 
Negro problem in all its phases. They started under the auspices 
of the Young Men's Christian Association. Tremendous impetus 
was given their work by the establishment of the Phelps-Stokes 



Southern Universities on the Race Question 49 

fellowships at the Universities of Virginia and Georgia. Practically 
all the Southern universities represented on the commission are 
offering courses on the Negro question, using such scholarly works 
as Weatherford's Negro Life in the South and Stone's Studies in the 
Race Problem as texts, and these courses in the regular curricula are 
being supplemented by special Y. M. C. A. courses on various phases 
of Negro life. 

Some idea of the extent of the work undertaken by these stu- 
dents may be had from the report of last year's study at the Uni- 
versity of Virginia. This group of students, numbering nearly one 
hundred, issued a summary of the results of their study, in part as 
follows : 

"1. A reahzation of the pervasiveness of the problem; that in 
reality it is not an isolated situation out of touch with the affairs 
of the South at large, but an intimate, ever-present problem touch- 
ing the life of the South at every turn, and involving the hygienic, 
economic, and moral well-being of every citizen of the South. 

"2. Not only has the problem been recognized, but much read- 
ing has been done and much thought devoted to the subject. More 
than one hundred volumes were taken from the hbrary by students 
of this question. 

"3. Through lectures, books, and current magazines the men of 
the group have come in contact with the leading thinkers and work- 
ers in the field of sociological endeavor. 

"4. A library of more than four hundred volumes has been 
accumulated and completely catalogued for use, and additions are 
continually being made. 

"5. Actual investigation has been made and a foundation laid 
for future work of greater scope and value. 

''6. Virginia has assumed a leadership in this, the largest prob- 
lem of Southern life, that has attracted wide attention and excited 
emulation." 

The writer feels that he can best express his ideas as to the 
activities and opportunities of the commission by reproducing por- 
tions of his address before the commission, at its meeting in Athens, 
Ga., last December. 

The South is to be congratulated on the fact that she has edu- 
cational statesmen wth far-sighted and philanthropic vision, of the 
type of Dr. J. H. Dillard, of New Orleans, v/ho has consecrated his 



50 The Annals of the American Academy 

ripe experience and able executive leadership to the social, economic, 
educational, religious, and civic improvement of the Negro race. 
Such a leader, who is the inspiration and originator of this commis- 
sion of professors from representative Southern universities, is worth 
infinitely more to our nation, to our Southland, and to our sovereign 
states, than a thousand ranting demagogues. 

With such an inspiring force as Dr. Dillard, I feel that this 
commission could do no better than follow his splendid constructive 
outline which he has mapped out for our work and, therefore, as 
chairman of the commission, I invite suggestions in the following 
subjects: 

I. What are the conditions? 

(a) Religious — contributions, excessive denominational- 
ism, lack of the practical in preaching, etc. 

(b) Educational — self-help. Northern contributions, pub- 
lic schools, etc. 

(c) Hygienic — whole question of health and disease. 

(d) Economic — land ownership, business enterprises, 
abuse of credit system, etc. 

(e) Civic — common carriers, courts of justice, franchise, 
etc. 

Changes and tendencies in the above conditions. 
Attitude oj the whites. 
II. What should and can be done, especially by whites, for im- 
provement? 
III. What may be hoped as to future conditions and relations? 
With reference to the religious contributions to the betterment 
of the Negro, it may be said that our churches have been pursuing 
a "penny-wise and pound-foolish economy." The Presbyterians last 
year gave an average of three postage stamps per member to the 
work. The Methodists averaged less than the price of a cheap 
soda water — just a five-cent one. The Southern Baptist convention 
has only been asking from its large membership $15,000 annually 
for this tremendous work. In view of these conditions, as Southern 
churchmen we may well echo the passionately eloquent outburst 
of Dr. W. D. Weatherford, one of the most profound thinkers and 
virile ^Titers on the Negro question and the leader of the young 
men of the South in their Y. M. C. A. work, "Do we mean to say 
by our niggardly gifts that these people are helpless and worthless 
in the sight of God? Do we mean to say that 1 cent per member 



Southern Universities on the Race Question 51 

is doing our share in evangelizing the whole race? God pity the 
Southern Christians, the Southern churches, and the Southern States, 
if we do not awake to our responsibility in this hour of opportunity." 

But the responsibility for deplorable religious conditions among 
the Negroes is not altogether with the whites. While it is true that 
the Negro is by nature a religious and emotional animal, while there 
are approximately 4,500,000 church members among the 10,000,000 
Negroes in the United States, and these churches represent property 
values of nearly $40,000,000, yet it is also painfully true that exces- 
sive denominationalism and ecclesiastical rivalry and dissensions 
prevent the formation of strong, compact organizations among them 
and, as a result, there are twice as many church organizations as 
there should be, congregations are small, and the salaries paid their 
preachers are not large enough to secure competent men. 

In connection with the character of the average Negro preacher, 
it is interesting to note that in an investigation made by Atlanta 
University concerning the character of the Negro ministry, of 200 
Negro laymen who were asked their opinion of the moral character 
of Negro preachers, only thirty-seven gave decided answers of ap- 
proval. Among faults mentioned by these Negro laymen were self- 
ishness, deceptiveness, love of money, sexual impurity, dogmatism, 
laziness, and ignorance, and to these may be added the fact that 
preaching is generally of a highly emotional type and is wholly 
lacking in any practical moral message. At the April meeting of 
the Southern Sociological Congress, I trust that some one will dis- 
cuss the necessity of holding up before the Negroes the conception 
of the Perfect Man of GaUlee of unblemished character and spotless 
purity, who went about doing good, as well as the conception of a 
Savior of power and a Christ of divinity. 

Educationally the Negroes of the South have made remarkable 
progress. In 1880, of the Negro population above ten years of age, 
70 per cent was illiterate. By the end of the next decade, this 
illiteracy had been reduced to 57.1 per cent, and by the close of the 
century, it had decUned to 44.5 per cent. During the last ten years 
of the nineteenth century, there was an increase of the Negro popu- 
lation of 1,087,000 in the school age of ten years and over, yet, 
despite this increase, there was a decrease in iUiteracy of 190,000. 
In 1912, there are over 2,000,000 between the ages of five and 
eighteen, or 54 per cent of the total number of educable Negro 



52 The Annals of the American Academy 

children, enrolled in the common schools of the former slave states, 
and the percentage of ilUteracy among the Negroes is only 27.5 
per cent. , 

In the state of Arkansas for the year ending June 30, 1912, 
109,731 Negro children were enrolled in the common schools out of 
a total educable Negro population of 175,503, and the percentage 
of illiteracy among the Negroes was only 26.2 per cent. Besides 
the Branch Normal at Pine Bluff, maintained by the state at an 
annual expense of $15,000, an institution which has graduated 236 
Negro men and women in the thirty-eight years of its useful history, 
and six splendid Negro high schools at Fort Smith, Helena, Hot 
Springs, Little Rock, and Pine Bluff, there are six denominational 
high schools and colleges in Arkansas that are giving the Negroes 
an academic education and practical instruction in manual training, 
domestic science, practical carpentry, and scientific agriculture. 
These facts tell the story of praiseworthy sacrifice, frugality, struggle 
and aspiration. 

The amount devoted to Negro education in the South for the 
forty years, ending with the academic session 1910-11, is approxi- 
mately $166,000,000. Of this amount the Negro is beginning to 
pay a fair proportion, especially in North Carolina and Virginia. 
But the Southern white people have borne the brunt of the burden, 
meriting the stately eulogy of the late lamented commissioner of 
education, William T. Harris, that "the Southern white people in 
the organization and management of systems of public schools mani- 
fest wonderful and remarkable self-sacrifice," and also the tribute 
of Dr. Lyman Abbott, editor of the Outlook, "while Northern benev- 
olence has spent tens of thousands in the South to educate the 
Negroes, Southern patriotism has spent hundreds of thousands of 
dollars for the same purpose. This has been done voluntarily and 
without aid from the federal govermnent." 

The South as a whole has appreciated the truth of the six 
axioms in the programme of Negro education so admirably set forth 
by Dr. W. S. Sutton, of the University of Texas, in a recent bulle- 
tin, and she boldly affirms that the highest welfare of the "black 
child of Providence" committed to her keeping lies not in social 
or even political equality but in equality of industrial opportunity 
and educational enlightenment. Therefore, if the dangerous and 
insiduous movement for the segregation of the school funds between 



Southern Universities on the Race Question 53 

the races in proportion to the amount paid in as taxes is to be 
checked, the Negro must awake more keenly to the necessity of 
self-help, realizing that 

Self-ease is pain, thy only rest 

Is labor for a worthy end; 

A toil that gives with what it yields, 

And hears, while sowing outward fields, 

The harvest song of inward peace. 

In the problem of Negro education, the keystone of the arch 
is the rural school, which has been shamefully neglected. Dr. Dil- 
lard, by his wise administration of the Jeanes and Slater Funds, 
has rendered an invaluable service in the improvement of rural 
Negro schools, employing at the present time 117 supervisors in 
119 Southern counties at an average annual salary of S301.38 to 
competent teachers who co6perate with the county examiners and 
superintendents in the supervision of Negro schools. The question 
has been raised by Honorable George B. Cook, superintendent of 
public instruction in Arkansas, as to whether these supervisors and 
the funds for their employment should not be placed under the imme- 
diate control of the state departments of education by Dr. Dillard, 
and I respectfully submit this as a fruitful subject for discussion by 
this commission. 

Closely allied to the proper solution of the problem of Negro 
education are the practical questions of better hygienic conditions 
and housing, the reduction of the fearful mortality rate now devas- 
tating the race, and the prevention of disease. At present the 
death rate of the Negroes is 28 per 1,000, as opposed to 15 per 1,000 
for the whites. The chief causes of this excessive death rate among 
the Negroes seem to be infant mortality, scrofula, venereal troubles, 
consumption, and intestinal diseases. According to Hoffman, over 
50 per cent of the Negro children born in Richmond, Va., die before 
they are one year old. This is due primarily to sexual immorality, 
enfeebled constitutions of parents, and infant starvation, all of which 
can be reduced by teaching the Negroes the elementary laws of 
health. 

The highest medical authorities agree that the Negro has a 
predisposition to consumption, due to his small chest expansion and 
the insignificant weight of his lungs (only four ounces), and this 



54 The Annals of the American Academy 

theory seems to be borne out by the fact that the excess of Negro 
deaths over whites from consumption is 105 per cent in the repre- 
sentative Southern cities. But however strong the influence of hered- 
ity it is undeniable that consumption, the hookworm, and fevers of 
all kinds are caused in a large measure by the miserable housing 
conditions prevalent among the Negroes. Poor housing, back alleys, 
no ventilation, poor ventilation, and no sunshine do much to foster 
disease of all kinds. 

Furthermore, people cannot be moral as long as they are herded 
together like cattle without privacy or decency. If a mother, a 
father, three grown daughters, and men boarders have to sleep in 
two small rooms, as is frequently the case, we must expect lack of 
modesty, promiscuity, illegitimacy and sexual diseases. It is plainly 
our duty to preach the gospel of hygienic evangelism to our unfor- 
tunate "neighbors in black," for the Ciceronian maxim, Mens sana 
in corpore sa7io, is fundamental in education. Certainly, he who 
is instrumental in causing the Negro to build two and three-room 
houses where only a one-room shack stood before and to construct 
one sleeping porch where none was before deserves more at the hands 
of his fellowman than the whole race of demagogues put together. 

Economic progress has been the handmaid of educational en- 
lightenment in the improvement of the Negro. Indeed, to the Negro 
the South owes a debt of real gratitude for her rapid agricultural 
growth, and in no less degree does every true son of the South owe 
the Negro a debt of gratitude for his unselfishness, his faithfulness, 
and his devotion to the white people of Dixieland not only during 
the dark and bloody days of the Civil War but during the trying 
days of our industrial and political renaissance. 

To the Negro, either as an independent owner, tenant, or laborer 
we partly owe the increase in the number of our farms from 504,000 
in 1860 to over 2,000,000 at the present time; the increase in our 
farm values from $2,048,000 in 1860 to $4,500,000 at the present 
time; the decrease in the size of our farm unit from 321 acres in 1860 
to 84 acres at the present time. 

In this substantial progress of our glorious Southland, the Negro 
has had a distinct and commendable share. It has been estimated 
by workers in the census bureau that in 1890 Negroes were culti- 
vating, either as owners, tenants, or hired laborers, one hundred 
million acres of land, and at the present time the estimated value 



Southern Universities on the Race Question 55 

of property owned by Negroes in the United States is $750,000,000. 
Of the 214,678 farmers in Arkansas in 1910, 63,593, or almost 30 
per cent, are Negroes, and of these Negro farmers, 14,662, or 23 
per cent were owners and 48,885, or 77 per cent, were tenants. 
In the United States as a whole at the period of the last decennial 
census, there were 2,143,176 Negroes engaged in farming; 1,324,160 
in domestic and personal service; 275,149 in manufacturing and 
mechanical pursuits; 209,154 in trade and transportation, and 47,324 
in professional service — a remarkable showing for a race that emerged 
barely three centuries ago from the night of African darkness and 
depravity. 

However, there are four well defined retarding forces to the 
fullest economic development of the Negro in the South, and to 
these evils this commission should give thoughtful and earnest con- 
sideration — the tenant system, the one crop system, the abuse of the 
credit system, and rural isolation. I believe that industrial educa- 
tion, teaching the Negro the lessons of the nobility of toil, the value 
of thrift and honesty, the advantages attaching to the division of 
labor and the diversification of industry, and the dangers lurking 
in the seductive credit system, will prove an effective panacea for 
these self-evident evils. 

Therefore, as a Southern man, born, raised, and educated in 
the proud commonwealth of Mississippi, I welcome the splendid efforts 
of such men as Booker T. Washington, of the Tuskegee Institute; 
Major Morton, of Hampton Institute; Joseph Price, of Livingston 
College, North Carolina; Charles Banks and Isaiah Montgomery, 
of Mississippi; and Joseph A. Booker and E. T. Venegar, of Arkansas; 
in behalf of the industrial education of their race. 

As the sons of proud Anglo-Saxon sires, we of the South doubt 
seriously the wisdom of the enfranchisement of an inferior race. 
We believe that reconstruction rule was "a reign of ignorance, mon- 
grelism, and depravity," that the Negro is the cheapest voter and 
the greatest Bourbon in American politics, North and South alike, 
and that as a political factor he has been a disturbing factor in our 
civic life. Personally, I believe in the Mississippi educational quali- 
fication test for suffrage, sanely administered, with as much ardor 
as in a literacy test for foreign immigration. 

However, "a, condition and not a theory confronts us." As an 
American citizen the Negro is entitled to life, liberty and the pur- 



56 . The Annals of the American Academy 

suit of happiness and the equal protection of our laws for the safe- 
guarding of these inalienable rights. The regulation of suffrage in 
the South, as well as in the North, is and always will be determined 
by the principle of expediency. But none but the most prejudiced 
Negro-hater, who often times goes to the extreme of denying that 
any black man can have a white soul, would controvert the propo- 
sition that in the administration of quasi-public utilities and courts 
of justice, the Negro is entitled to the fair and equal protection of 
the law. Separate coach laws are wise, but discriminations in serv- 
ice are wrong. 

If "law hath her seat in the bosom of God and her voice in 
the harmony of the world, all things paying obeisance to her, the 
greatest are not exempt from her power and the least as feeling her 
protecting care," if 

Sovereign law, the state's collected will, 
Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill, 

then the meanest Negro on a Southern plantation is entitled to the 
same consideration in the administraion of justice as the proudest 
scion of a cultured cavaher. 

It is, indeed, a travesty on Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence to send 
a Negro to the penitentiary for^ a term of eighteen years for selling 
a gallon of whiskey in violation of law and at the same time allow 
scores of white murderers to go unpunished, as was recently stated 
to be a fact by a governor of a Southern state. Even if it be only 
theoretically true that ''all people are created free and equal," and 
if, as a practical proposition, the Negro is a "Ham-sandwich for the 
Caucasian race," it is undeniably true that he is entitled to the equal 
protection of our laws and to the rights safeguarded every American 
citizen under the beneficent provisions of the Constitution of the 
United States. 

If I may use the eloquent words of the golden-tongued, clear- 
visioned, and Hon-hearted Bishop Charles B. Galloway, "The race 
problem is no question for small politicians, but for broad-minded 
patriotic statesmen. It is not for non-resident theorists, but for 
clear-visioned humanitarians. All our dealings with the Negro 
should be in the spirit of the Man of Galilee." 

The task confronting this commission, composed of Southern 
white men and representing the universities of the South, is Atlan- 



Southern Universities on the Race Question 57 

tean in its magnitude, and fraught with tremendous significance. 
I believe that ours is a noble mission, that of discussing the ways 
and means of bettering the religious, educational, hygienic, eco- 
nomic, and civic condition of an inferior race. I believe that by 
protesting against the miscegenation of the races we can recognize 
the sacredness of the individual white and the individual Negro 
and do much to preserve that racial integrity recently jeopardized 
by the Johnson-Cameron missaliance. I believe that by preaching 
the gospel of industrial education to the whites and Negroes alike 
we can develop a stronger consciousness of social responsibility. I 
believe that by the recognition of the fact that in the Negro are to 
be found the essential elements of human nature, capable of con- 
scious evolution through education and economic and religious bet- 
terment, we \vill be led at last to a conception of a world of unitj^, 
whose Author and Finisher is God. 



FIFTY YEARS OF FREEDOM: CONDITIONS IN THE SEA 

COAST REGIONS 

By Niels Christensen, 
Editor and Proprietor, The Beaufort Gazette, Beaufort, S. C. 

The story of the Sea Island Negroes in Beaufort County, S. C, 
is one of pecuhar interest. Here to an unusual extent they pre- 
dominate in numbers, and, in a greater measure than is usual else- 
where, are land owners. Their inherent tendencies have controlled 
them to a maximum degree. 

For the most part, the rural Negro of the South is massed along 
the alluvial lands of the coasts and the great rivers. As Dr. Carl 
Kelsey has pointed out in his admirable study The Negro Farmer, 
the tendency is to segregate. It therefore becomes important to 
determine the rate of the progress of the race where there is the 
minimum of influence from his white neighbors. 

The progress of any people will be greatest by those groups 
which are in closest contact with civilizing influences. Industrial 
conditions and the influence of the white race are perhaps the strong- 
est forces molding the Negro. On the rich land of the sea coast 
region, and on the alluvial lands of the rivers, industrial conditions 
are favorable in that there is no limit to the progress the individual 
farmer can make, no one to say him nay, a world-wide market, a 
congenial occupation. But here there is little contact with the 
white. Wliere, as a tenant farmer of the white land-owner, or as 
a customer of the white store-keeper, he has the urging of his task- 
master behind him, or as an independent farmer and land owner, 
he has the example of a white neighbor, the Negro responds. Where 
he is left to himself he drags. 

The extent of his progress under the last named conditions, 
this article will in a measure set forth in a study of local conditions 
in one county, from which general tendencies may be deduced. 



58 



Fifty Years of Freedom 59 



CHARACTER OF THE POPULATION 



In 1860 old Beaufort District had a population of 6,715 whites 
and 33,339 blacks. In 1870 Hampton and Beaufort Counties were 
formed from Beaufort District. The last census for these two coun- 
ties shows 12,969 whites and 42,496 Negroes. While the whites ' 
have gained 93 per cent, the increase of the Negroes has been 27^ 
per cent. 

In 1910 there were only eight counties in the country with a 
larger proportion of Negroes than Beaufort County, the percentage 
being 86.9 per cent Negro and 13.1 per cent white. Ten years ago 
it was 90^ per cent black. The last census shows that the Negroes 
have decreased 18 per cent since 1900 in Beaufort County, the sea 
coast half of the territory of Beaufort District, while the whites 
have increased 18.3 per cent. 

This Negro population of 26,376 includes only 1,230 mulattoes, 
or 4.6 per cent as against 16 per cent for the state at large, and 
20.9 per cent for the country. 

The total population of the county (30,167) is distributed over 
its 920 square miles at an average of 33 to the mile. 

Summarizing, we might say that in this rather thinly settled 
district, largely occupied by pure blooded Negroes, the race is dimin- 
ishing by reason of emigration to the cities and the saw mills and 
turpentine camps, where there is a demand for unskilled labor. 

MORALITY 

Criminal records 

An examination of the records of the criminal courts cannot 
go back of 1879 as the dockets before that date are missing. I 
have therefore, compared the records for the years 1879, 1880 and 
1881 with those of 1910, 1911 and 1912. The first records do not 
designate white and black law-breakers and the figures are totals. 
However, a careful examination of the names indicates very few, if 
any, whites brought to trial. The records for the latter period are 
for Negroes only. There were only four or five whites tried during 
this last period. The total number of cases brought to trial and 
the total convictions for the two periods are given. The first period 
shows 164 cases, and 61 convictions, and the latter shows 65 cases 
and 49 convictions. 



60 



The Annals of the American Academy 



In the first instance only 37.2 per cent of those tried were con- 
victed, and in the second 75.3 per cent. This condition may be 
accounted for by the fact that in the earher period the county 
machinery was largely in the hands of Negroes, and the percentage 
of Negroes on the juries was considerable. White juries are not 
so lenient. 

The record may be classified as follows: 





1879-1881 


1910-1912 


Crimes against the person 

Crimes against property 

Other crimes 


62 

78 
24 


27 

31 

7 






Total 


164 


65 







Of the 62 cases, 11 were for murder, 13 for assault and battery, 17 
assault with intent to kill, 12 riot and assault, 8 assault with intent to 
rape. The latter two crimes do not appear at all among the cases of 
1910-1912. The intent to rape were committed against their own 
race, while the riots were disturbances among church congregations. 
There has been no attempt by a Negro to commit rape upon a white 
woman, except in one instance where both parties were non-residents 
and in the county for only a few hours at a railroad junction. 

Of the 78 cases, 18 were for grand larceny, 21 for petit larceny, 
21 for house-breaking, 6 for trespass, 5 for breach of trust. 

In a population of more than 26,000 Negroes only one quarter 
of 1 per cent are indicted each year in the circuit court. 

Most of the crimes of violence may be traced to whiskey as an 
aggravating factor. 

TJie CJturch Records 

The amount of support given his church may not be a certain 
indication of the Negro's advance in morality, but it certainly is 
worth consideration. 

Freedom found him with a considerable church membership, 
and he fell heir to some church property which had belonged to 
his masters, But the records which show the financial condition 
of the several congregations for this county indicate pretty accurately 
his accumulations since slavery. 



Fifty Years op Freedom 61 

In the "low country" the Baptist church has the largest fol- 
lowing. The Methodist comes next in importance, and there are 
enough Presbyterians in the town of Beaufort to own a church. Of 
other denominations there is little heard among the Negroes here. 

From the church organizations of Beaufort County statements 
have been secured for the purpose of this review and compilation 
made. This recapitulation is not accurate, but is approximately 
correct. 

We find 68 churches, with 10,339 members, cared for by 38 
pastors. The church property is valued at $91,625 and the annual 
funds collected for all church purposes are $17,967.19. 

The average, then, would be a church of 152 members served 
by a pastor giving a little over half his time to this particular charge. 
The property would be worth $1,494 and the annual contribution 
$264. 

Viewing it from another angle, we see that there is a church 
member for every 2.55 of the total Negro population of 26,376, and 
that the annual subscription amounts to 68 cents for each one of the 
said total population of the county. 

Reviewing these figures it may be concluded that the percentage 
of criminals is small and diminishing, and that the church is well 
supported. It may be added that the leading ministers are usually 
men of force, character and education and that the influence of the 
church is far greater than that of the public school. The minister 
is the natural leader. The standard of sexual morality in the rural 
districts is low, and while drunkenness is not at all common, the 
"county dispensaries" sell annually $150,000 worth of whiskey, most 
of which is bought by Negroes. 

LITERACY 

The school attendance for the Negro for Beaufort County be- 
tween the ages of six and fourteen is 49.4 per cent, as against 56 
per cent for South Carolina and 59.7 per cent for the country at 
large. 

Of the race ten years of age and over in this county, 43 per 
cent are illiterate, with which we may compare 38.7 per cent for the 
state and 30.4 per cent for the country. But the rate of decrease 
in illiteracy in Beaufort County between 1900 and 1910 was 29.68 



62 The Annals of the American Academy 

per cent, while that for the country was 31.6 per cent and for the 
state 26.7 per cent. 

This county has an unusually large revenue for school purposes, 
derived in considerable measure from profits of the liquor business 
which it manages as a monopoly. The amount of expenditure per 
black pupil is $3.08 per annum as against $1.98 for the state at large; 
the average salary per colored teacher is $148.96, and for the state 
$113.72. The county school session is 16.1 weeks, and the state's 
13.8. Moreover there are now three private schools maintained prin- 
cipally by Northern contributors, and in the past decades there were 
more. In the county there are on an average, 56 pupils to each 
teacher, and 64 in the state. The average number of pupils in each 
school is 56, and in the state 64. The excess in number of illiterates, 
therefore, is not due to lack of opportunity. 

Need of the stimulus of white example shows itself particularly 
in the conditions as to illiteracy. With greater educational oppor- 
tunities the coast Negroes have accomplished less in fifty years than 
their race in the up-state counties, though the response in the last 
decade has been marked, and greater than in the state at large. 

INDUSTRY 

The economic advance of the Negro during his fifty years of 
freedom may be best determined by discovering what he possesses 
today. It would be difficult to fix, even approximately, the value 
of his annual earnings in this one county. He came out of freedom 
without property and with this as a starting point we may discover 
certain facts. 

An attempt has been made, however, to compare the cotton 
crop of 1860 with that of the present day in this section, but with- 
out very satisfactory results as to accuracy. The census shows that 
where the old Beaufort District raised 190.95 pounds per inhabitant, 
the same territory in the last four years raised an average of 260.47 
pounds. In Beaufort County, where a large part of the crop is 
raised by Negroes, the crop for the last named period averaged 162 
pounds. 

It is generally held among the merchants who "carry" these 
Negro farmers that thej^ are not maintaining the grade of their long 
staple cotton nor making as large yields as formerly. This may in 



Fifty Years op Freedom 



63 



part be attributed to the fact that the prices for the staple have 
not increased in proportion to the cost of living. The stagnation 
in the market of their principal crop results in the dwindling popu- 
lation noted. 

The falUng off in cotton raising is also attributed to the fast 
disappearing number of slavery-trained Negroes. No universal in- 
dustrial training has been substituted for the new generation. The 
industrial schools are not numerous enough to have marked effect 
on large areas, and only in the past decade have they been indus- 
trial in more than name. 

A cash-paying Negro farmer is an exception. Twelve months' 
credit is the rule, and a natural result of a one-crop system. 

TAX BOOK FIGURES 

A study of the present property holdings of the Negroes in the 
four blackest townships of the county may be interesting. They 
have a population of 21,910, including the 3,000 credited to the 
towns of Port Royal and Beaufort. Outside of these towns the white 
population is negligible; in one township with over 7,000 Negroes, 
there are not 100 whites. The figures for real and personal property 
are taken from the books of the county auditor. As whites and 
blacks are not designated on these records, it was necessary to 
secure the assistance of the present auditor and of one who served 

Four Townships 





1876 


1912 




White 


1 

Negro Total 


White 


Negro 


Total 


•^0. of taxpayers 

vTo. of buildings 

•To. of acres 


341 
501 

98.369^ 
129 

288.4 
$237,609 
$608,120 


2,937 
406 
62,195i 
367 

25.9 
$250,402 
$361,253 


3,278 

907 

160,565 

496 


662 

1,116 

134,384 

1,573 

200 
$407,590 
$948,250 


7,024 

2,663 

50,913 

885 

^ 7 

$274,735 
$643,400 


7,686 

3,779 

185,297 


s[o. of town lots 

Werage acre per tax- 


2,458 


/■alue personalty 

/alue realty 


$488,011 
$969,373 


$682,125 
$1,591,650 








Total value 


$845,729 


1 
$611,655 $1,457,384 


$1,355,840 


$918,135 


$2,273,775 



) 



64 The Annals of the American Acadeiviy 

many years ago. These gentlemen indicated the white tax payers 
on the books and on this data the following study is based. The 
statement of the bank holdings is estimated by the bank authorities, 
and the church property is given from figures supplied by the church 
organizations before referred to. 

The figures for 1876 and 1912 were taken to show the relative 
l^rogress. 

In the late sixties between 20,000 and 25,000 acres were sold 
to the Negroes of two of these townships for a nominal price by the 
federal direct tax commissioners. The latter acquisitions have been 
on the open market. 

1. Previous to 1876 the county and state goveriunents were in 
the hands of Negroes and exploiters and were much demoralized. 
In the years since, the acres returned in the given townships have 
been steadily increased. 

2. Thirty-six years ago the Negro holdings were in the hands 
of heads of families that have since been divided among heirs. Hence 
the decrease in the size of per capita holdings. 

3. The realty is returned for assessment at about one-third its 
value and the personalty at about 60 per cent. 

It will be seen that though the number of buildings returned 
by the blacks has increased over sixfold, and though more than 
double the number of individuals are paying taxes on an assessed 
value 50 per cent greater than in 1876, yet the land returned has 
diminished. Over 11,000 acres have shpped away in thirty-six years. 
At the same time they have increased their ownership of town lots 
from 367 to 885. 

Present Holdings 

Realty (market value) $1,930,200 

Personalty (market value) 384,629 

Savings in banks 40,000 

Church property 83,125 

Total $2,437,954 

The per capita worth of each Negro enumerated in these town- 
ships in the last census, would be over $120. 

It is significant that of the total realty and personalty ($2,314,- 
829), more than one half, or $1,434,321.80, was secured in the first 
ten years of freedom. 



Fifty Yeaes of Freedom 65 

personal appearance 

The steady improvement in dress and hygiene is noticeable. 
In this part of the South where the dividing hne between the races 
in matters social and poUtical is strongly marked, there is little 
friction. The Negro brought from slavery a genuine deference 
to the white race, that showed itself in "good manners." Today 
much of this spirit remains. 

THE FUTURE 

The inertia of the race where left to itself, impresses those 
who live among them and study the progress of this people. It 
is often remarked that the sea food of the coast makes existence 
too simple a matter. The temptation is to "live in the creek," 
where the fish, crab, oyster and terrapin afford an abundance of 
food supply and the source of a small money revenue. But little 
fuel or clothing is necessary. The climate affects all with lassitude. 
Why toil and slave where airs are balmy, skies clear, all nature 
languorous, and man's necessities few? What does "freedom" mean 
if not emancipation from arduous labor? One sometimes wonders 
that there is any advance. 

Yet there is progress. The story of the development of truck 
farming is one of patient industry rewarded now by large returns. 
Around Norfolk, Charleston and at several points in Florida the 
success of market gardeners has been one of the significant industrial 
developments of the coast region for the half century. In Beaufort 
County capital has been accumulated, icing, transportation, and 
other marketing facilities built up, and lands developed to the point 
where the truck crop is as important as the cotton crop. Farmers 
have netted over $1,000 an acre for lettuce, and this season one 
potato grower has twenty times that amount as the profit of his 
whole crop. The advanced methods, with accompanying improved 
machinery, introduced by these men, most of them natives, are 
making over agricultural conditions. 

As yet the Negro's part in this new agricultural life is princi- 
pally that of the day laborer. A considerable number are raising 
truck successfully in a small way, but it takes capital, intelligence, 
and experience to succeed, and no great increase in the number of 
Negro truck farmers are looked for in the immediate future. Mean- 



66 The Annals of the American Academy 

while he is learning the value of intensive farming which the rice 
and cotton fields of the great plantations did not teach him. 

The enterprise with which this new agricultural life is infusing 
the coast regions is felt in all occupations, and, as skilled artisan 
and day laborer, the Negro is part of most of them. His industrial 
life is inextricably bound up with the industrial life of this terri- 
tory where he is so large a part of the population. Every movement 
affects him. 

No man can foresee the direction agricultural development here 
will take. Once indigo was raised and exported from this town 
in locally built ships, rice came, and by improving the grade the 
name of Carolina was made known around the world. A fine fiber 
of cotton established the reputation of the Sea Islands in every 
factory where the best cotton goods are made. Toda}^ indigo has 
disappeared, rice has all but gone, the long staple cotton business 
is not thriving, but the wealth of the great eastern cities is paying 
our farmers fancy prices for lettuce in winter, potatoes in the spring 
and other vegetables out of their seasons. 

Other unforeseen economic conditions may come to leaven the 
mass. Phosphate mining played a part here for two decades and 
then passed on to Florida and other sections, and the oyster can- 
neries of this and the gulf coast now emplo}^ Negro gatherers and 
shuckers. Climatic and other conditions make these Sea Islands 
an ideal winter recreation ground for the nation, and the future 
will doubtless see them so used. Plan as we may, theorize with 
ever so much seeming wisdom, in the fulness of time some great 
economic change comes, sweeping all before it, forming new barriers, 
destroying old ones, cutting new channels. But in all human prob- 
ability the possibilities of the years to come lie in agriculture, and 
with more white farmers to lead in the development of these lands, 
the coast regions will advance with rapid strides. 

It is probable that long before the vast uncultivated areas of 
the South have become occupied, the Negro will have firmly estab- 
lished himself in all the black districts, as he has here, as a land 
owning farmer. Surrounded by an ambitious, progressive and en- 
lightened people, his rate of progress will be accelerated. 



THE WHITE MAN'S DEBT TO THE NEGRO 

By L. H. Hammond, 

Paine College, Augusta, Ga. 

We hear the phrase with increasing frequency — "the white 
man's debt to the Negro;" but there is no debt white people owe to 
Negroes on the ground of race. As a descendant of slave-owners, 
a long-time friend of the Negro, and a lover of my own people, 
Southern problems are for me both an inheritance and an environ- 
ment ; and I believe both the North and the South have obscured and 
magnified the task of Negro uplift by continually talking and think- 
ing about it in terms of race. If we would see life sanely, we must 
see it whole. No race can be understood when regarded as a de- 
tached, and consequently anomalous, fragment, cut off from its wide 
human relations. Races are human first and racial afterwards. 
Differences go deep, and abide; but likenesses go deeper yet: the 
most radical evolutionist and the most ultra-orthodox Christian 
must agree on that point. 

There are just two things in the so-called Negro problem which 
are really questions of race. One of them is the desire of the better 
classes of both races to keep whites and blacks racially, and there- 
fore socially, distinct. This is expensive, especially in the matter 
of separate pubHc schools; but no wise man, in either race, objects 
to that. In such a case, however, both justice and statesmanship 
require that school provision be made, not according to a man's 
ability to support the schools but according to the children's needs. 
This standard is far from being attained in the South, or in many 
other sections; yet our best men see its wisdom, and we do move 
toward it, though slowly and haltingly. 

The other purely racial ingredient of the "Negro" problem is 
prejudice; and it is not confined to either race. Yet after all, though 
racial and local in its manifestations, as race prejudice must always 
be, it is as wide as humanity and as old as time. It cannot be 
charged upon the South alone, nor are its manifestations in the 
South, in any respect, peculiar to Southern whites or Southern blacks; 

67 



66 The Annals of the American Academy 

while he is learning the value of intensive farming which the rice 
and cotton fields of the great plantations did not teach him. 

The enterprise with which this new agricultural life is infusing 
the coast regions is felt in all occupations, and, as skilled artisan 
and day laborer, the Negro is part of most of them. His industrial 
life is inextricably bound up with the industrial life of this terri- 
tory where he is so large a part of the population. Every movement 
affects him. 

No man can foresee the direction agricultural development here 
will take. Once indigo was raised and exported from this town 
in locally built ships, rice came, and by improving the grade the 
name of Carolina was made known around the world. A fine fiber 
of cotton established the reputation of the Sea Islands in every 
factory where the best cotton goods are made. Today indigo has 
disappeared, rice has all but gone, the long staple cotton business 
is not thriving, but the wealth of the great eastern cities is paying 
our farmers fancy prices for lettuce in winter, potatoes in the spring 
and other vegetables out of their seasons. 

Other unforeseen economic conditions may come to leaven the 
mass. Phosphate mining played a part here for two decades and 
then passed on to Florida and other sections, and the oyster can- 
neries of this and the gulf coast now employ Negro gatherers and 
shuckers. Climatic and other conditions make these Sea Islands 
an ideal winter recreation ground for the nation, and the future 
will doubtless see them so used. Plan as we may, theorize with 
ever so much seeming wisdom, in the fulness of time some great 
economic change comes, sweeping all before it, forming new barriers, 
destroying old ones, cutting new channels. But in all human prob- 
ability the possibilities of the years to come lie in agriculture, and 
with more white farmers to lead in the development of these lands, 
the coast regions will advance with rapid strides. 

It is probable that long before the vast uncultivated areas of 
the South have become occupied, the Negro will have firmly estab- 
lished himself in all the black districts, as he has here, as a land 
owning farmer. Surrounded by an ambitious, progressive and en- 
lightened people, his rate of progress will be accelerated. 



THE WHITE MAN'S DEBT TO THE NEGRO 

By L. H. Hammond, 
Paine College, Augusta, Ga. 

We hear the phrase with increasing frequency — "the white 
man's debt to the Negro;" but there is no debt white people owe to 
Negroes on the ground of race. As a descendant of slave-owners, 
a long-time friend of the Negro, and a lover of my own people, 
Southern problems are for me both an inheritance and an environ- 
ment; and I believe both the North and the South have obscured and 
magnified the task of Negro uplift by continually talking and think- 
ing about it in terms of race. If we would see life sanely, we must 
see it whole. No race can be understood when regarded as a de- 
tached, and consequently anomalous, fragment, cut off from its wide 
human relations. Races are human first and racial afterwards. 
Differences go deep, and abide; but likenesses go deeper yet: the 
most radical evolutionist and the most ultra-orthodox Christian 
must agree on that point. 

There are just two things in the so-called Negro problem which 
are really questions of race. One of them is the desire of the better 
classes of both races to keep whites and blacks racially, and there- 
fore socially, distinct. This is expensive, especially in the matter 
of separate public schools; but no wise man, in either race, objects 
to that. In such a case, however, both justice and statesmanship 
require that school provision be made, not according to a man's 
ability to support the schools but according to the children's needs. 
This standard is far from being attained in the South, or in many 
other sections; yet our best men see its wisdom, and we do move 
toward it, though slowly and haltingly. 

The other purely racial ingredient of the "Negro" problem is 
prejudice; and it is not confined to either race. Yet after all, though 
racial and local in its manifestations, as race prejudice must always 
be, it is as wide as humanity and as old as time. It cannot be 
charged upon the South alone, nor are its manifestations in the 
South, in any respect, peculiar to Southern whites or Southern blacks; 

67 



68 The Annals of the American Academy 

they are peculiar to that stage of intellectual and moral growth 
which those manifesting the prejudice have attained. And, know- 
ing this, one ma.y regard it, not without sorrow, but without bitter- 
ness, and with hope. It is a stage of life, and it will pass. 

With these two exceptions all that we white Americans, North 
and South, have so long known as the Negro problem is not Negro 
nor racial, but human; and the sooner we all recognize this fact 
the sooner our sectional and racial prejudices and animosities will 
give place to mutual sympathy and cooperation. There can be, in 
the nature of things, no successful sectional appeal between North 
and South, nor successful racial appeal from black to white, or vice 
versa; a successful appeal must be made from a common standing- 
ground, and that we find, not in our diflferences, but in our common 
humanity. 

Our Negro problem is, with the exceptions noted, our fragment 
of the world-problem of the privileged and the unprivileged, of the 
strong and the weak, dwelling side by side. It is human, and eco- 
nomic. We say, here in the South, that the mass of the Negroes 
are thriftless and unreliable; that their homes are a menace to the 
health of the community; and that they largely furnish our supply 
of criminals and paupers. And most of us believe that all this is 
the natural result, not of the Negro's economic status, but of the 
Negro's being Negro. 

There is truth in the indictment; yet it is by no means so largely 
true as many of us believe. Take a single instance: the census of 
1910 shows the value of Negro-owned farm lands in the South to 
be $272,922,238, a gain of over 150 per cent for the decade. The 
same decade shows a decrease in Negro illiteracy from 48.1 per cent 
in 1900 to 33.4 per cent in 1910. These figures prove that the race 
is advancing rapidly, no matter how much ignorance, incompetence 
and criminality remain for future elimination. They also prove, 
lynching and other barbarities to the contrary notwithstanding, that 
Southern whites, as a whole, are not as bad neighbors for Southern 
blacks as some of our Northern brethren fear. 

A main reason for disregarding, in our estimates of Negro life, 
the extraordinary progress of a large and growing section of the 
race, and for our fixing our attention almost entirely upon its less 
desirable members is that the latter are the Negroes most prominent 
in our own lives. As the Negro gains in culture, in efficiency, in 



The White Man's Debt to the Negro {59 

his struggle for a competence, he withdraws into a world of his 
own, a world which lies all about us white folk, yet whose existence 
we rarely suspect. The inefficients of the race, the handicapped, 
the unambitious, the physically and morally degenerate — all these 
remain in that economic morass which we regard as purely racial; 
and from them we draw the bulk of our supply of unskilled laborers 
and servants. From this class, too, we fill our jails; and to many 
of us it is all the class there is. As fast as a man rises out of it he 
disappears from our field of vision. 

I have been impressed increasingly by these facts since my 
husband and I have laid aside other things and come to live at a 
school for the higher education of Negroes. In our many previous 
years of effort to aid the race we had become aware of this with- 
drawn world, of course; but it remained remote, intangible, save for 
brief, bewildering glimpses. It is not yet an open world; but since 
we have taken this public and decisive stand of sympathy we pass 
the threshold, and come upon that deeper life which aspires in the 
breasts of those who carry in their own hearts the sorrows and bur- 
dens of a race. One must be struck with a sense of the sacrificial 
instinct of this class. It is with Negroes as with other races: under 
pressure of misfortune or of calamity a race or a nation, like an 
individual, sinks down to the sources of life, and rises to wider 
vision;- brotherhood becomes real to them. The Negro who has 
risen to higher intellectual and industrial levels and who does not 
realize his debt of service to the less fortunate of his race is rather 
the excc])tion than the rule. 

But the mass of the Negroes are still in the economic morass; 
and we of the South do not yet reahze that conditions such as it 
furnishes produce exactly the same results in men of all races, the 
world around. In a population racially hetcogeneous, like that of 
New York or Chicago, or in one racially homogeneous like that of 
London or Rome, or in a bi-racial population like our own, the 
people who live on the edge of want, or over it, furnish nearly the 
whole of the world's criminal supply. Insufficient food, housing 
conditions incompatible with health or decency, a childhood spent 
unprotected in the streets — these things produce, not in this race 
or that, but in humanity, certain definite results: ill-nourished bodies, 
vacant and vicious minds, a craving for stimulants, lack of energy, 
weak wills, unreliability in every relation of life. French slums 



70 The Annals of the American Academy 

breed French folks like that, Chinese slums breed such Chinamen, 
English slums Englishmen of the same kind, and Negro slums such 
Negroes. 

When we see this, approaching our "Negro" problem by world- 
paths, grasping it in its world-relations, we will begin to do what 
the privileged classes are learning to do elsewhere — to widen the 
bounds of justice, to open the door of opportunity for all, to give 
our slum-dwellers a living, human chance. 

It is not for a moment claimed that when they have a human 
chance slum dwellers of many races and of diverse inheritances will 
be all of one pattern. It is only in the depths of undevelopment 
that differences disappear. In the lowest forms of life even animal 
and vegetable seem one; but as life develops it differentiates. Slum- 
dwellers, when the way of growth is opened for them, come true to 
type, and will render each their own racial service to the human 
brotherhood. 

Here in the South, as elsewhere, the stability of civilization is 
to be measured by the condition of the masses of our working people. 
Men of all nations have been prone to think that enduring national 
strength can be built up on rottenness; that national and industrial 
life can be broad-based and firm though it rest on injustice to the 
poor and the despised, on ignorance, immoralitj'', inefficiency, disease; 
that the great huddled mass of workers can be safely exploited and 
then ignored; that a people may defy the fundamental law of human 
life and prosper. So, from the beginning, have nations fallen; until, 
at last, men began to learn. In the old world and in the new we 
are moving slowly, along much-lauded paths of science, to that 
ignored simplicity of Jesus Christ, whose word of human brother- 
hood we have forgotten. 

Here in the South we are moving too. Some of our best are 
turning to serve our neediest. In Louisville, Ky., is a man, the 
son of an Alabama banker, a man of substance and family, 
who is conducting settlement work for Negroes, serving them in 
the same ways that other college-bred men and women serve folk 
of other races in the same economic class elsewhere. One of the 
International Y. M. C. A. secretaries, a Southern man, has enrolled 
six thousand young men in our Southern colleges to study the 
white man's debt to the Negro; and another Southern secretary is 
following up the work by organizing these young men for social 



The White ^^Ian's Debt to the Negro 71 

service among Negroes. The Southern University Commission on 
the Negro, an outgrowth of the first Southern Sociological Congress, 
held a year ago, is composed of men both young and old from every 
Southern state university, who are agreed as to the duty of the 
favored race to secure justice and opportunity for the backward 
one. The Woman's Missionary Council of the Southern Methodist 
Church, an organization representing over two hundred thousand 
of our white women, recently adopted a plan for cooperation between 
their own local societies, some four thousand in number, and the 
better class of Negroes, for the uplift of the poorer classes, locally, 
throughout the South. Through their secretary for Negro work 
efforts in this direction are already being made at several points. 
The Southern Baptists have still more recently decided to open a 
theological seminary for Negro preachers. It is to be in connection 
with their seminary for white preachers, and the same man, one of 
their most honored leaders, is to be the head of both institutions. 
The Southern Presbyterians have long had a theological seminary 
for Negroes, where Southern white college men have taught their 
darker brothers. In South Carolina white members of the Episcopal 
church, both men and women, are giving their personal service to 
the Negroes. The Southern Methodists have for thirty years main- 
tained a school for the higher education of the race where college- 
bred Southern white men and women have taught from the begin- 
ning. The Southern Educational Association has been on record 
for several years as favoring the teaching of Negro normal students 
by Southern whites; and the work of a man like the Virginia state 
superintendent of Negro rural schools is something for both races 
to be thankful for. Southern club women, too, in more than one 
state, are showing both by word and deed a spirit of sympathy with 
the Negro life in their midst. Among the many encouraging and 
inspiring utterances by both whites and blacks at the recent meet- 
ing of the Southern Sociological Congress in Atlanta no single speech 
summed up the race situation as did that of a young Negro on the 
closing night. 

"I have always known," he said, "that the old Southern white 
man understood and trusted the old Negro, and that the old Negro 
understood and trusted the old Southern white man; but before this 
congress I never dreamed that the young Southern white man and 
the young Negro could ever understand or trust one another; and 



72 The Annals of the American Academy 

now I know they can; and that shoulder to shoulder, each in his 
own place, they can work out together the good of their common 
countr}^" 

In all the congress, no speech won from the white people heartier 
applause than this. But the white men who spoke, college profes- 
sors, lawyers, business men, preachers, had their audience with them 
also, as they called for justice and brotherhood and service in the 
spirit of Christ. 

The millennium is probably far to seek; but vision is coming 
to our leaders — a vision of human oneness under all racial separate- 
ness, of human service fitted to human need. And as the leaders 
are, the people will be. When even one man sees truth its ultimate 
triumph is always assured. Whatever may happen in between, the 
final issue is inevitable. 

The educational needs of the Negroes are great. The mass of 
them, like the mass of every race, must always work with their 
hands, doing what we call the drudgery of life. They need to learn, 
as we all do, that drudgery is not in work, but in the worker's habit 
of mind. We need, not merely in the South, but in America, to 
approach the German standard in regard to industrial training for 
the rich and the poor of all races. As we grow more rational our- 
selves the Negroes will catch the infection, as they have caught 
from white folk. North and South, an irrational scorn of "common" 
work. Our public and private schools, especially our normal schools, 
for both races, need large development in industrial training. We 
are awaking to this fact, particularly in regard to our white schools; 
and as they progress along broader lines progress in schools for 
Negroes will be easier. 

The only absolutely untouched need of the Negro, and it is a 
need most fundamental, most disastrous in its long neglect, is the 
need for decent, healthful houses for the poorer classes. We are 
just developing a social consciousness in the South, and it is natu- 
rally first aroused by the needs of the poor whites. We know little, 
as yet, of slum populations elsewhere, and we think of the Negro 
slum-dweller as a separate fragment of life, unrelated, a law unto 
hhnself, creating his slum as a spider spins his web, from within. 
We build him shacks and charge heavy rents, as landlords of this 
economic class do the world around. Cheap as the shelter furnished 
is, it deteriorates so rapidly, through neglect and misuse, that the 



The White jVIan's Debt to the Negro 73 

owners of such property, the world over, declare that the high rentals 
are necessary to save them from actual loss. 

We need an experiment-station in Negro housing in the South. 
Fifty thousand dollars would buy a city block of six acres, and put 
on four of them eighty well-lighted, three-roomed houses, with water 
and a toilet in each, and with a tiny garden-spot. Two acres would 
furnish a playground for the children, otherwise doomed to ruin 
in the city streets; and there would be money enough left to put 
up a settlement house providing for a kindergarten, free baths, boys' 
clubs, industrial classes, a place of recreation for young people whose 
only present refuge is a low dance-hall or a saloon. At two dollars 
per room per month, the price paid in my own town by people of 
this class for houses which are a menace to the whole community, 
the income from such an investment would pay the salary of a 
social worker, who would collect the rent on the Octavia Hill plan, 
and would yet yield 10 per cent gross on the investment, in dollars 
and cents. In character-building, in the cutting off of our pauper 
and criminal supply, in convincing our white people that the slum 
breeds the Negro we find in the slum, the return on the investment 
would be incalculable. 

An experiment like this, worked out to success and advertised 
through the South, would awaken the interest and win the approval 
of very many Southern business men who deplore the Negro slum 
but see no hope of abolishing it. Money would be invested in decent 
homes for this class as soon as white men saw it could be done with- 
out financial loss. Such an experiment station would do more than 
any other one thing I know of to help the Negroes who most need 
help; but the money for this initial enterprise will have to come 
from beyond the South, where these methods have already been 
successfully tried. That it will come I firmly believe. When things 
ought to be done they get done, somehow; and this fundamental 
need is to be met. 



NEGRO CRIMINALITY IN THE SOUTH 

By Monroe N, Work, 
Tuskegee Institute, Tiiskegee. Ala. 

Prior to the Civil War there was not, in the South, the prob- 
lem of Negro crime such as now exists. Although at that time each 
of the slave states had elaborate and severe laws for dealing with 
Negro criminals, they were, in proportion to the total number of 
Negroes, comparatively few. Immediately following emancipation, 
however, their numbers increased. This was inevitable; for many 
of the restraints that had been about the slaves were suddenly 
removed and much of the machinery for state and local government 
had broken down. As a result there was confusion and disorder. 
Many of the slaves left the plantations. There was the beginning 
of the migration from section to section from the rural districts to 
the cities and from the South to the North. Under all these circum- 
stances it was not surprising that there should be an increase in 
Negro crime. The wonder is that there was not more confusion, 
disorder and rapine. The great majority of the freedmen did not 
attempt to be lawless. They exercised the same restraint that they 
had exercised during the four years that their masters had l^een 
away on the field of battle. But to some of the newly enfranchised, 
freedom meant the license to do what they pleased. It was from 
this class that the majority of the criminals came. 

As an example of the increase in the number of Negro criminals, 
we will take the state of Georgia. In 1858, there were confined in 
the Georgia penitentiary 183 prisoners, all of whom were appar- 
ently white. Twelve years later, in 1870, there were 393 prisoners 
in this penitentiary, of whom 59 were white and 334 colored. 

According to the United States census, the total number of 
Negroes confined in Southern prisons in 1870 was 6,031; ten years 
later, the number, 12,973, had more than doubled; twenty years 
later, the number, 19,244, was three times as great; thirty -four years 
later, however, that is in 1904, the number of Negroes confined in 
Southern prisons was 18,550. This would appear to indicate that, 

74 



Negro Criminality in the South 



75 



so far as prison population is an index, Negro criminality in the 
South in recent years has not increased. It is probable that there 
is some decrease, for a study of criminal statistics of cities North 
and South, indicates that between 1890 and 1904 Negro criminality, 
which up to this time had seemed to be steadily increasing, reached 
its highest point and began to decrease. It appears that the de- 
crease began about 1894-1895. 

The number of prisoners per 100,000 of Negro population also 
appears to bear out this conclusion. It also shows that there is a 
much higher rate of crime among Negroes in the North than in the 
South. This is to a large extent due to the fact that seven-tenths 
of the Negroes in the North, as against one-tenth in the South, 
live in cities and are of an age when persons have the greatest 
tendency to crime. 

In the following table the number of Negro prisoners in North- 
ern and Southern states is compared. 





Negro Prisoners 




Year 


Northern States 


Southern States 


1870 
1880 
1890 
1904 


2,025 
3,774 
5,635 

7,527 


6,031 
12,973 
19,244 
18,550 



Prisoners per 100,000 of Negro Population 


1870 


372 


136 


1880 


515 


221 


1890 


773 


284 


1904 


765 


220 



It is significant that the number of lynchings reached its highest 
point about the same period that Negro crime reached its highest 
point. From 1882 to 1892 the number of persons lynched annually 
in the United States increased from 114 to 255. From that time on 
the number decreased. In 1912, there were 64 lynchings in the United 
States. The total number of lynchings during the thirty years from 
1882 to 1912 were 4,021. Of this number, 1,231 were whites and 
2,790 were Negroes. The average per year for Negroes was 93, for 
wkites, 41. From 80 to 90 per cent of the lynchings are in the 



76 The Annals of tup: American Academy 

South. Less than one-fourth of the lynchings of Negroes is due to 
assaults upon women; in 1912 only one-fifth was for this cause. 
The largest per cent of lynchings is for murder or attempted 
murder. Over 10 per cent is for minor offenses. 

It is of still greater interest to compare the commitments for 
rape. In 1904, the commitments for this crime per 100,000 of the 
total population were: all whites, 0.6; colored, 1.8; Italians, 5.3; 
Mexicans, 4.8; Austrians, 3.2; Hungarians, 2.0; French, 1.9; Rus- 
sians, 1.9. Of those committed to prison for major offenses in 1904 
the per cent committed for rape was, for colored, 1.9; all whites, 
2.3; foreign white, 2.6; Irish, 1.3; Germans, 1.8; Poles, 2.1; Mexicans, 
2.7; Canadians, 3; Russians, 3; French, 3.1; Austrians, 4.2; Ital- 
ians, 4.4; Hungarians, 4.7. The commitments for assaults upon 
women are low in the Southern States. In the south Atlantic divi- 
sion the rate per 100,000 of the population in 1904, was 0.5; in the 
south central division it was 0.7. Some would suppose that the 
low rate of commitments for rape in the South is due to the fact 
that the most of the perpetrators of these crimes are summarily 
lynched; but if, however, all the Negroes who were lynched for rape 
in the South were included, the rate for colored would be changed 
less than one-fourth of 1 per cent. 

The report of the immigration commission in 1911 on Immigra- 
tion and Crime gives the following concerning the per cent that rape 
forms of all offenses by Negroes and whites: of convictions in the 
New York City court of general sessions for nine months of 1908- 
1909, Negro, 0.5; foreign white, 1.8; native white, 0.8. Chicago police 
arrests from 1905-1908, Negro, 0.34; foreign white, 0.35; native white, 
0.30; of ahen white prisoners, 1908, in the United States, 2.9. 

Both North and South the crime rate for Negroes is much higher 
than it is for whites. In 1904 the commitments per 100,000, in the 
entire country, were, for whites, 187; for Negroes, 268. In the 
Southern States, Negro crime compared with white is in the ratio 
of 3^ to 1. On the other hand it is interesting to find that the 
Negro has a relatively lower crime rate than several of the emigrant 
races who are now coming to this country. The following table 
shows the commitments to prison, in 1904, per 1,000, of certain 
nationalities : 



Negro Criminality in the South 



77 



Nationality 


Number In United 

States according 

to census 1900 


Prison commit- 
ments In 1904 


Commitments 

per 1,000 of each 

nationality 


Mexicans 

Italians 

Austrians 


103,410 

484,207 
276,249 
104,341 

1,181,255 
424,096 
383,510 

8,840,789 


484 

2,143 
1,006 
358 
3,557 
1,222 
1,038 
23,698 


4.7 
4.4 
3 6 


French 

Canadians 

Russians 

Poles 


3.4 
3.0 

2.8 
2 7 


Negroes 


2 7 







As a result of emancipation and the increase in Negro crime, 
great changes were brought about in the prison systems of the South. 
Before the war the states of the South operated their prisons on 
state account and they were generally a burden on the states. After 
the close of the war the states found themselves with an increasing 
prison population and no resources from which to make appropri- 
ations for the support of these prisons. Throughout the South there 
was great demand for labor. Inside the prisons were thousands of 
able-bodied Negroes. Offers were made to the states by those need- 
ing labor to lease these prisoners, and so it was discovered that what 
had been an expense could be converted into a means of revenue 
and furnish a source from which the depleted state treasuries could 
be replenished. Thus it came about that all the Southern state 
prisons were either by the military governments or by the recon- 
struction governments, put upon lease. 

The introduction of the convict lease system into the prisons 
of the South, thereby enabhng the convicts to become a source of 
revenue, caused each state to have a financial interest in increasing 
the number of convicts. It was inevitable, therefore, that many 
abuses should arise. In his report for 1870, less than a year after 
the Georgia lease had been effected, the principal keeper of the 
penitentiary complained about the treatment of the convicts b}^ 
the lessees. An investigation in 1875 of the Texas system revealed 
a most horrible condition of affairs. From time to time in other 
states there were attacks on the systems and legislative investiga- 
tions. The better conscience of the South demanded reform in the 
treatment of criminals for it was found that "the convict lease 
system had made the condition of the convict infinitely worse than 



78 The Annals of the American Academy 

was possible under a system of slavery in which the slave belonged 
to his master for life." In recent years there has been much improve- 
ment in the condition of convicts in the South. Five states, Louisi- 
ana, Mississippi, Georgia, Oklahoma and Texas have abolished the 
lease, contract, and other hiring systems. All the other Southern 
states still sell convict labor to some extent, but in each of these 
strong movements are on foot to abolish the custom. 

After the close of the war and as a part of the reconstruction 
of the South there had to be some readjustment of court procedure 
with reference to Negroes. Hitherto they had been dealt with as 
slaves or as free persons of color. After the adoption of the war 
amendments, they came before the courts as full citizens of the 
United States. From now on, much of the time, in many sections, 
the major part of the time of the criminal courts has been taken 
up with trying cases where Negroes were concerned. 

Before emancipation the Negro had noted that wherever the 
law had been invoked with reference to a Negro that it was gen- 
erally to punish or to restram. Thus he came to view the law as 
something to be feared and evaded but not necessarily to be re- 
spected or to be sought as a means of protection. Under freedom 
the Negro's experience with the law was much the same as it had 
been in slavery. He found that the courts were still used as a means 
of punishment and restraint and that generally they were not the 
place to seek for protection. Another cause of the Negroes regard- 
ing the courts unfavorably was the stringent laws relating to labor 
contracts. These laws imposed severe penalties upon the laborer 
who violated his contract and often reduced him to peonage. The 
result is that at present the attitude of the Negroes toward the law 
is that many still associate laws with slavery and look upon courts 
as places where punishment is meted out rather than where justice 
is dispensed. 

This brings us to the question whether the Negroes are fairly 
tried in the courts. Judge W. H. Thomas, of Montgomery, Ala., 
after an experience of ten years as a trial judge, in an address before 
the Southern Sociological Congress, at Nashville, in 1912, said: 

My observation has been that courts try the Negro fairly. I have ob- 
served that juries have not hesitated to acquit the Negro when the evidence 
showed his innocence. Yet, honesty demands that I say that justice too 
often miscarries in the attempt to enforce the criminal law against the native 



Negro Criminality in the South 79 

white man. It is not that the Negro fails to get justice before the courts in 
the trial of the specific indictment against him, but too often it is that the 
native white man escapes it. It must be poor consolation to the foreign- 
born, the Indian, the Negro and the ignorant generally to learn that the law 
has punished only the guilty of their class or race, and to see that the guilty 
of the class, fortunate by reason of wealth, learning or color, are not so 
punished for like crime. There must be a full realization of the fact that if 
punishments of the law are not imposed on all offenders alike, it will breed 
distrust of administration. 

Hon. William H. Sanford, also of ^Montgomery, Ala., in an 
address before the same congress on ''Fundamental Inequalities of 
Administration Of Laws," further illuminated this question. He 
pointed out that the real population of the South is made up of three 
distinctive communities: 

First where the population is composed largely of Negroes, sometimes in 
the ratio of as many as ten to one. Second, where the population is largely 
white, usually at a ratio of about two to one. Third, where the population 
is almost entirely white. 

In the first of these, in the administration of the criminal law, the Negro 
usually gets even and exacts justice, sometimes tempered with mercy. The 
average white man who serves on the juries in these counties, in his cooler 
moments and untouched by racial influences, is a believer in fair play, and 
for the most part is the descendant of the men who builded the foundation 
of our states. But in these communities, a white man rarely, if ever, gets a 
fair and an impartial trial, and, if indeed he is indicted by a grand jury, his 
conviction or acquittal is determined more upon his family connections, his 
business standing or his local political influence than upon the evidence in 
the case as applied to the law. 

In the second of these communities the law is more nearly enforced as 
to both classes, and except in cases where the rights of the one are opposed 
to those of the other, convictions may be had, and indeed are often had, against 
the members of both races for offenses of the more serious nature. 

In the third of these communities the white man usually gets a fair trial 
and is usually acquitted or convicted according to the evidence under the 
law, while the Negro, the member of an opposite race, has scant consideration 
before a jury composed entirely of white men, and is given the severest 
punishments for the most trivial offenses. 

In conclusion what are some of the principal factors of Negro 
criminality in the South? The convict lease system has already 
been indicated as one of these factors. Another factor is the impos- 
ing of severe and sometimes unjust sentences for misdemeanors, 
petty offenses and for vagrancy. Still another factor is the lack of 



80 The Annals of the Amerjcan Academy 

facilities to properly care for Negro juvenile offenders. Ignorance 
is, by some, reckoned as one of the chief causes of Negro crime. 
The majority of the serious offenses, such as homicide and rape, 
are committed by the ignorant. It appears to be pretty generally 
agreed that one of the chief causes of Negro crime in the South is 
strong drink. Attention was called to this fact by the great falling 
off in crime in those sections of the South where the prohibition 
law was put into effect. The general testimony is that where pro- 
hibition has really prohibited the Negro from securing liquor, the 
crime rate has decreased; where, however, the prohibition law has 
not prevented the Negro from securing liquor, there has been no 
decrease in the crime rate, but, instead, the introduction of a cheaper 
grade of liquor peddled about in the city and in the country dis- 
tricts, appears to have tended to increase crime. 

One of the most significant and hopeful signs for the satisfac- 
tory solution of the race problem in the South is the attitude that 
is being taken towards Negro crime. The Negroes themselves are 
trying to get at the sources of crime and are making efforts to bring 
about better conditions. In some sections they have law and order 
leagues working in cooperation with the officers of the law. The 
white people are also giving serious consideration to Negro crime. 
Its sources, causes and effects upon the social life of the South are 
being studied. Movements are on foot for bettering conditions. 
Under the leadership of the late ex-Governor W. J. Northern, of 
Georgia, Christian civic leagues, composed of colored and white 
persons, were organized in that and other states for the purpose of 
putting down mob violence. The Southern Sociological Congress is 
taking the lead for the abolition of the convict lease and contract 
systems and for the adoption, in the South, of modern principles of 
prison reform. 



THE MOVEMENT FOR THE BETTERMENT OF THE 
NEGRO IN PHILADELPHIA 

By John T. Emlen. 
Secretary and Treasurer of the Armstrong Association of Philadelphia. 

Philadelphia has a Negro population according to the 1910 
census of 84,459. Four other cities in the United States have larger 
Negro populations: Washington, 94,446; New York, including 
Manhattan, Bronx, Queens, Richmond and Brooklyn, 91,709; New 
Orleans, 89,262; and Baltimore, 84,749. No other cities in the 
United States have Negro populations at all approaching these in 
numbers. 

At the present rate of increase. New York will probably in the 
next ten years be the leading Negro city, and Philadelphia, second. 
This may be seen by the fact that in the past ten years New York in- 
creased about 31,000; Philadelphia, about 22,000; Washington, about 
12,000; New Orleans, about 11,500; and Baltimore, about 5,500. 

The accompanying maps indicating the distribution of the total 
population and of the Negro population by wards show how the 
Negroes are spread over the city. Map A on page 82 shows by 
wards the distribution of the total population in 1910, each dot 
indicating a population of 5,000 persons. The chief business section 
of the city centers about Market and Chestnut Streets, and between 
the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, so that this district shows less 
congestion of dwellings than those immediately surrounding it on 
both sides. In the surrounding districts or wards, the population 
is the thickest, but it is fairly evenly distributed, becoming, how- 
ever, less concentrated in the outlying and suburban wards. Map 
B on page 83 shows the Negro population of Philadelphia, in 1890, 
each dot indicating 250 persons. Map C, on page 86 shows simi- 
larly the Negro population of 1910. In noting the map of 1890,' 

1 These maps give the population accurately by wards, but of course as 

they do not show the relative distribution of population in different parts 

of the ward, the results in a few wards are a trifle misleading. For example, 

in the 26th and 36th wards, the greater part of the Negro population is 

toward the northern ends. 

81 



82 



The Annals of the American Academy 




Map a. — Distribution by Wards of Population of Philadelphia, Both 

White and Negro, 1910 
One dot to every 5,000 population 



Betterment of Negroes in Philadelphia 



83 




Map B.— Distribution by Wards of Negro Population of Philadelphia, 

1890 
One dot to every 250 Negroes. No Tabulation for Wards 35, 36, and 37 



84 The Annals of the American Academy 

one sees the largest concentration of the Negro population in the 
7th ward, and the next largest in the 4th, 5th, 8th and 30th, which 
are adjoining. 

In 1910, the Negro population has, to some extent, shifted and 
spread. In the central 5th and 8th wards, it is very much smaller 
than in 1890, and, while the 7th is larger by about 2,700, it has not 
increased in proportion to the increase in some other parts of the 
city. The 30th ward, to the southwest of the 7th, has increased 
over five-fold, and further to the south, in the 26th and 36th wards, 
and to the west in various parts of West Philadelphia, and to the 
north in the 14th, 15th, 20th, 47th and 32d, and in Germantown, 
the increase has been very great. The Negro population, therefore, 
has a very large concentrated nucleus, but has increasingly spread 
in large numbers over two-thirds of the city. 

In studying the bettering of conditions among such a popula- 
tion, one must inquire about the greatest needs and the practical 
opportunities for meeting them. There should be sufficient oppor- 
tunities for reUgious and educational instruction, for recreation, for 
the amelioration and improvement of social and of economic con- 
ditions, and for the improvement of conditions of health and of 
housing. 

Scattered through the wards to meet the religious needs of 
this population are about 105 churches of about 12 different denom- 
inations, mostly Baptist, or of some form of Methodist Episcopal. 
These churches are, apart from their function as centers of religious 
inspiration, centers for social entertainment and intercourse to a 
much larger extent than are the churches of the white people, yet 
very few of them are able at the present time to meet the needs of 
the population in some of the educational and recreational ways in 
which social centers should meet them. Accordingly, social centers 
in various sections have grown up. These with playgrounds in the 
city are indicated in Map D on page 87. 

Two playgrounds are available for the thickly populated center 
of the 7th and 30th wards — one on the extreme lower edge of the 
colored population and one which is well located for the 30th, and 
the upper part of the 7th. Unfortunately, the latter will probably 
soon be abolished and the ground used for other purposes, and if 
no other ground is secured, this will be a serious loss to the com- 
munity. A ground is also especially needed in the neighborhood 
of the 40th and 27th wards. 



Betterment of Negroes in Philadelphia 85 

A number of the social centers are at the present time doing 
very good work, but as a group they are in number and equipment 
very inadequate to meet the present needs. The things that are 
needed throughout the city to make the proper recreational facihties 
are playgrounds and the increased use of the school yards and build- 
ings. On account of the great financial difficulties in securing suffi- 
cient money for social centers, adequate provisions can usually be 
made only at the schools. It will, however, be of no special value 
to have these unless, when they are opened, they can have the 
proper supervision. The use of such facilities with good sympa- 
thetic supervision is one of the greatest needs of the colored people 
at the present time. The Thomas Durham school building, in the 
7th ward, is becoming an increasingly valuable social center of the 
kind needed. There are now, as may be seen on the map, a number 
of centers in the central section, noteworthy among which will be 
the Y. M. C. A., with its new $100,000 building, and the Y. W. C. A., 
with its new plant. 

Some of the institutions and agencies for relief and for social 
betterment are for both white and colored and some for colored 
only. In some organizations purporting to work "without distinc- 
tion of color" it is very difficult to get attention for a colored case. 
On the whole, however, in most lines a fair proportion of colored 
cases receive attention. Some of the activities and opportunities 
of such institutions and agencies may be briefly summarized. The 
day nurseries receiving colored children are fairly adequate for the 
different sections where there are large colored populations, except 
in the neighborhood of the 47th and 20th wards, where one is much 
needed. Four of them are in or near the central section where there 
is the largest population, one in West Philadelphia, and one in 
Germantown. Most of the hospitals receive colored cases in large 
numbers, and in two hospitals courses are given for the training of 
colored nurses, Lymg-in charities afford shelter and protection. One 
agency meets colored immigrants from the South at the wharves, 
and affords them needed protection. Dependent children are pro- 
vided for through a number of institutions in many of which there 
is cooperation, the cases being distributed through the children's 
bureau. Many of these institutions have a long history and between 
them furnish quite as good facilities as are afforded to white chil- 
dren. 



86 



The Annals of the American Academy 




Map C. — Distribution by Wards of Negro Population of Philadelphia, 

1910 
One dot to every 250 Negroes 



Betterment of Negroes in Philadelphia 



87 




Map D~PLAYGRomiDs, including Parks used as Playgrounds and Social 

Centers, Available to Negroes, 1913 

© Indicates a Social Center 



88 ■ The Annals of the American Academy 

The report of the committee on municipal charities^ says that 
ten institutions care for both white and colored, with a capacity 
of 2,567, and ten for colored children only, with a capacity of 567. 
It is sometimes necessary to send more children to these institu- 
tions than would normally be sent, because of the extreme difficulty 
in finding proper kinds of homes in the country near Philadelphia 
in which to place them. In spite of thorough and continual inves- 
tigation by the Children's Aid Society, the number of such homes 
seems to be very small in proportion to the need. Provisions addi- 
tional to those made by the municipality for the aged and infirm 
are furnished by one institution, with accommodations for 140, and 
by one small home. The state reformatories are for both white 
and colored. In addition to the facilities b}^ the municipality, two 
private institutions for the blind, two for the deaf, and two for the 
feeble-minded and epileptic admit Negroes. The number of Negroes 
about one year ago in these institutions, according to investigation, 
were, respectively, 10, 21 and 31. General agencies for charity organ- 
ization, children's aid, protection of children from cruelty, etc., and 
other agencies of outdoor relief, should be and are run under general 
organizations for both races. 

Negroes have much more difficulty in securing good houses in 
good neighborhoods than members of the other races have. Various 
building and loan associations have helped them much to overcome 
this handicap. Under the Housing Commission of Philadelphia, sev- 
eral committees of colored people have, from time to time, been 
organized to care for the needs of their own communities, but very 
little interest has been shown by the committees and not much has 
been done. Through such committees the colored people could, 
with entire protection to themselves, rid many communities of filth, 
bad drainage, and overcrowding, and could much improve health 
conditions. Most of the agencies for the improvement of health — • 
namely, hospitals with their social service departments, dispensaries, 
anti-tuberculosis society, etc. — give their interest and attention to 
colored and white. 

Economic opportunities for the majority of Negroes are limited. 
They can work in but few trades, though one may find in census 
reports that there are Negroes in almost all kinds of work that do 

"Report of Sub-Committee on "Dependent Children" in the Report of 
the Committee on Municipal Charities, 1913. 



Betterment of Negroes in Philadelphia 89 

not require large capital. The figures in such reports do not always 
reveal real conditions. If one hundred carpenters, for example, are 
recorded, so man}^ of these are unskilled that the figures do not 
represent real conditions, and seem to show a larger number of work- 
men in this occupation than actually exists. The women are re- 
stricted chiefly to domestic service, and though this restriction is 
unfortunate and resented by them, they do quite as well economi- 
cally as white girls of similar efficiency and training. To men, 
however, the restrictions are more serious. Unskilled Negro men 
through faults partly their own, and partly those of the other race, 
are limited in the kinds of work open to them, and the Negro boys 
are restricted in the kinds to which through skill and training they 
may rise. 

Vocational training, and training in the qualities of character 
necessary to success, are needed. Ample facilities for academic 
training but not for vocational are available. Courses at the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania are open to those desiring to enter. Good 
courses may be obtained by a limited number in private institutions 
in dressmaking, sewing and cooking. Several private schools give 
trade courses, and at the Philadelphia Trade School several courses 
are open, but in training in trade and business courses and in the 
lines of work in which the majority enter, there are not, and can 
not be, sufficient facilities except through the public school system. 
Public schools are the means through which, not only the educa- 
tional, but, to a large extent, the economic needs must be met. 

The historical development of the agencies and institutions, 
some of them dating from long before the time of emancipation, 
may be sketched briefly. As early as 1770, a school house was built 
by members of the Society of Friends for the education of the colored 
people, and a number of such educational institutions were estab- 
lished, from time to time, but gradually the public school system 
has come to fill the function for which these pioneers planned. Two 
institutions for dependent colored children, started in 1822 and 1855, 
are still existent and perform an important w^ork for dependent chil- 
dren. In more recent times other institutions for dependent chil- 
dren have been established. In 1864, a home for aged and infirm 
colored persons was founded. A trade school started in 1837 was, 
in 1902, made a normal school for academic and industrial training 
of Negro teachers. The majority of these institutions founded fifty 



90 The Annals of the American Academy 

years ago, or more, are supported by endowment, and the control 
of the management is, to a large extent, in the hands of members 
of the white race. Many of them are very well conducted and are 
an invaluable help in meeting the present needs. Most of the organi- 
zations treating chiefly colored cases, however, have started within 
the past twenty years. They include hospitals, schools, homes, 
social centers, etc. In some of these, the institutions in both their 
work and oversight are carried on largely by colored people. Some 
are supported by voluntary contributions, but some receive a con- 
siderable amount of their support from state appropriations. 

In any large city there should be an organization to work in 
a general practical way for the interest of the colored people, sup- 
plementing at any time the community needs which are not being 
met by the other institutions. This the Armstrong Association of 
Philadelphia has for jBve years increasingly endeavored to do in 
Philadelphia. 

Several general activities for such an organization are obvious: 
(1) A bureau of record of various institutions both within and out- 
side of the city, to help the various agencies in the treatment of 
individual cases. (2) An occasional investigation in a fifeld in which 
improvement seems possible. (3) Education of the white members 
of the community to make them feel a sympathy with and respon- 
sibility to the other race. (4) Education of the colored members 
of the community to make them feel a practical interest in the prog- 
ress of their people. (5) Practical work in fields needing tempora- 
rily special attention. 

A large amount of data relative to a bureau of record has been 
obtained and a bureau partially completed. Three careful investi- 
gations have been made and printed. Literature is sent annually 
to over 10,000 white persons in Philadelphia. Much of this is merely 
in circular form but it gains the attention of many who otherwise 
would not hear of the Negro problem from a sympathetic point of 
view. In this, of course, work somewhat similar is done by others. 
Lectures have been held in schools and churches. Recently the 
meetings at which these lectures have been held have been well 
attended. At each of the recent meetings an expert has given an 
address on a special phase of social work. 

In addition to the above, the Armstrong Association has given 
a great deal of attention and effort to two subjects of especial impor- 



Betterment of Negroes in Philadelphia 91 

tance at the present time: First, the economic situation, which a 
worker of the charity organization reports is the greatest handicap 
of the colored people; second, the pubUc schools as an agency for 

help. 

To aid in solving the difficulty of the economic situation, the 
Armstrong Association established an office with a department for 
employment which has grown steadily. The chief purpose of the 
employment work is: (1) To help skilled Negroes to get work, and 
(2) to help Negroes into new kinds of work. During the past year 
it has helped in securing five hundred jobs and placements for 
colored men and women. These placements were made through the 
office at which opportunities were looked up, references secured, and 
often investigations made of how the work was done. This five 
hundred does not, however, represent the actual number assisted, 
because a number of men who were helped to get work several years 
ago, have since then dealt directly with their customers without the 
necessity of using the Armstrong Association as an intermediary, 
and have consequently each year obtained positions which are not 
credited to us. Our purpose among mechanics has been to increase 
the number of workers and to help those who are already working. 
Three associations among the mechanics were formed, covering dif- 
ferent branches, and two others have affiliated with us, namely— 
the stationary engineers and the portable engineers. Among the 
stationary engineers there has been considerable appreciation of the 
importance of continued organization, but among the others the 
advantages of mutual cooperation do not seem to be yet appre- 
ciated. Mechanics have been helped by us in the drawing of con- 
tracts and specifications and, sometimes, in their accounts, with the 
result that one man increased his work from a very small amount 
to about $7,000, in one year, and in the next year to about $25,000. 
The progress of the men has been handicapped through their lack 
of capital and through their inability to secure loans at reasonable 
rates of interest. But such loans would be of little value without 
training on their part in being able to handle the financial side of 
large operations. A remedial loan association would, however, be 
of great value to them. The association was instrumental in help- 
ing more than a hundred shirt waist workers to secure places in 
shirt waist factories. Different individuals among these changed so 
frequently from year to year that any organization among them to 



92 The Annals of the American Academy 

increase their numbers and efficiency proved to be impossible. Over 
a hundred track workers for the Pennsylvania Railroad were found 
places, and thus introduced into a kind of work which was new to 
them in the neighborhood of Philadelphia. 

The association is planning to continue to increase the indus- 
trial possibilities among the men by further study of openings, and 
by following up individual cases to see in each case whether the 
difficulty is prejudice, improper supervision, or inefficiency, and 
whether this difficulty can be remedied. 

To help the public schools experimentally, the Armstrong Asso- 
ciation employs a trained worker in two important school centers, 
under the direction of the principals. The worker gives her whole 
time to the two schools where the largest number of colored children 
attend. Through her there has been established a point of con- 
tact between the home and the school, and by visits in the homes 
and studies of the needs and possibilities of each individual child, 
by meetings of parents, by treatment of special cases, and by voca- 
tional guidance the parent and the child both become more inter- 
ested in the school and the child is helped. A social center is prom- 
ised in one of these schools which already has an evening school, 
and in the other it is hoped that an evening school will soon be 
established. In both it seems as if progress is being made and new 
possibilities shown. In the actual handling of the work, Negro social 
workers are usually the best, and they will be of increasing impor- 
tance. Nothing can be more important at the present time than 
the thorough training and guidance of such workers, who with proper 
oversight, increasing from time to time, will make their work more 
efficient. Through such workers there should be an improvement in 
general in the conditions among the colored people. 

The work just outlined of an organization for the systematic 
study and betterment of conditions of Negroes living in cities, is 
comparatively new, starting five years ago, but we are convinced 
that it has done good and that such work has possibilities for good. 
Similar work is being undertaken in New York and several other 
cities, and will be increasingly recognized as an important part of 
the program of social work of an American city. 



PROBLEMS OF CITIZENSHIP 

By Ray Stannard Baker, 
Amherst, Mass. 

What place does the Negro occupy as a citizen in the American 
democracy, and what place should he occupy? 

Up to the present time, although the status of the Negro has 
presented the most serious single group of problems that the nation 
has ever had to meet, his influence as a participant in the rights 
and responsibilities of government has been almost negligible. He 
has been an issue but not an actor in politics. 

In the antebellum slavery agitation Negroes played no conse- 
quential part; they were an inert lump of humanity possessing no 
power of inner direction; the leaders on both sides of the struggle 
that centered around the institution of slavery were white men. 
The Negroes did not even follow poor old John Brown. After the 
war the Negro continued to be an issue rather than a partaker in 
politics, and the conflict continued to be between groups of white 
men. First, the solid South was arrayed against the Northern re- 
constructionists, and afterwards the old aristocratic party in the 
South engaged in a long struggle with a rising democratic party 
which included the poor white element, up to that time politically 
unimportant. Even in reconstruction times, and I am not forget- 
ting exceptional Negroes like Bruce, Revels, Pinchback and others, 
the Negro was a partaker in govermnent solely by virtue of the 
power of the North. As a class the Negroes were not self-directed, 
but were used by the Northern reconstructionists and certain politi- 
cal Southerners, Avho took most of the offices and nearly all the 
pilferings. 

And this is not in the least surprising. Emerging from a con- 
dition of slavery the Negro had no power of independent action 
and practically no leaders who knew anything. He was still a slave 
in everything except name; and yet he was asked to become at 
once a governing citizen. Even an amendment to the federal con- 
stitution could not over night make freemen of slaves; for citizen- 
ship is bestowed in vain upon those who have not, in some measure, 

earned it. 

93 



94 The Annals of the American Academy 

Half a century, however, has wrought profound changes. Be- 
ginning in the crude freedmen's schools, and inspired later by the 
leadership of able men, both white and colored, the Negro has made 
surprising advances in fifty years. He has developed a real self- 
consciousness, he has his own body of opinion expressed in his 
own newspapers, and his leadership is clearly defined and vigorous. 
There can be no maimer of doubt of the remarkable progress of this 
race of slaves in half a century; and there is reason to believe 
that the progress will continue. Thousands of Negroes today have 
earned citizenship. 

"I believe I am safe in saying," writes Booker T. Washington, 
the greatest of Negro leaders, "that nowhere are there 10,000,000 
black people who have greater opportunities or are making better 
progress than the Negroes in America." 

In making these assertions, however, I do not wish to imply 
that no difficult problems remain to be solved. The Negro not only 
continues to be a hair-trigger issue in at least ten states of the Union, 
but the very fact that so many are now prepared for citizenship 
and are pressing forward to use with intelligence the rights con- 
ferred upon them by the fifteenth amendment, gives rise to new 
and very serious problems. The status of the Negro in the democ- 
racy still remains unsettled. Thousands of Americans believe earn- 
estly that no Negro, no matter how intelligent, should be allowed 
to share in the goverimient, and these not only Avish to throw down 
the legal barrier imposed by the fifteenth amendment, but do their 
best by state legislation, or by artifice at the primaries or at elec- 
tions, to nullify the legal rights of the Negro. Other thousands of 
Americans believe that all Negroes, like all white men, should have 
the full rights of citizenship. And between these two extremes exists 
every shade of opinion. As for the Negroes themselves, all of them, 
no matter what diversities of opinion there may be among them as 
to methods of progress, are pressing steadity forward to become 
real participants in government; and in Northern cities they have 
alread}^ become an element decidedly to be reckoned with. In 
certain Northern States like Ohio and Indiana the Negro vote is 
increasingly important. 

In order to answer with intelligence the question proposed at 
the head of this article it \^dll be well to consider, at the start, some 
of the fundamental aspects of citizenship, as symboHzed by the 
right to vote. 



Problems of Citizenship 95 

It will be admitted without argument, I think, that all govern- 
ments do and of necessity must exercise the right to limit the number 
of people who are permitted to take part in the weighty responsi- 
bilities of the suffrage. Some governments allow only a few men 
to vote; in an absolute monarchy there is only one voter; other 
governments as they become more democratic, permit a larger pro- 
portion of the people to vote. 

Our own government is one of the freest in the world in the 
matter of suffrage; and yet we bar out, in most states, all women; 
we bar out Mongolians, no matter how intelligent; we bar out Indians 
and all foreigners who have not passed through a certain probation- 
ary stage and have not acquired a certain small amount of education. 
We also declare — for an arbitrary limit must be placed somewhere — 
that no person under twenty-one years may exercise the right to 
vote, although some boys of eighteen are today as well equipped to 
pass intelligently upon public questions as many grown men. We 
even place adult white men on probation until they have resided 
for a certain length of time, often as much as two years, in the state 
or town where they wish to cast their ballots. Our registration and 
ballot laws eliminate hundreds of thousands of voters, and finally 
we bar out everywhere the defective and criminal classes of our 
population. We do not realize, sometimes, I think, how limited the 
franchise really is, even in America. We forget that out of over 
90,000,000 people in the United States only 15,000,000 cast their 
votes for President in 1912 — or about one in every six. 

Thus the practice of a restricted suffrage is very deeply implanted 
m our system of government. It is everywhere recognized that even 
in a democracy lines must be drawn, and that the ballot, the pre- 
cious instrument of the government, must be hedged about with 
stringent regulations. The question is, where shall these lines be 
drawn in order that the best interests, not of any particular class, 
but of the whole nation shall be served. 

Upon this question we, as free citizens, have the absolute right 
to agree or disagree with the present laws concerning suffrage; and 
if we want more people brought in as partakers of the government, 
or some people who are already in, barred out, we have a right to 
organize, to agitate, to do our best to change the laws. Powerful 
organizations of women are now agitating for the right to vote; there 
is an organization which demands the suffrage for Chinese and 



96 The Annals of the American Academy 

Japanese who wish to become citizens. It is even conceivable that 
a society might be founded to lower the age-limit from twenty-one 
to nineteen years, thereby endowing a large number of young men 
with the privileges, and therefore the educational responsibilities, of 
political power. On the other hand, many people, chiefly in our 
Southern States, earnestly believe that the right of the Negro to 
vote should be curtailed, or even abolished. 

Thus we disagree, and government is the resultant of all these 
diverse views and forces. No one can say dogmatically how far 
democracy should go in distributing the enormously important pow- 
ers of active government. Democracy is not a dogma; it is not 
even a dogma of free suffrage. Democracy is a life, a spirit, a 
growth. The primal necessity of any sort of government, demo- 
cratic or otherwise, whether it be more unjust or less unjust toward 
special groups of its citizens, is to exist, to be a going concern, to 
maintain upon the whole a stable administration of affairs. If a 
democracy cannot provide such stability, then the people go back 
to some form of oligarchy. Having secured a fair measure of sta- 
bility, a democracy proceeds with caution toward the extension of 
the suffrage to more and more people — trying foreigners, trying 
women, trying Negroes. 

And no one can prophesy how far a democracy will ultimately 
go in the matter of suffrage. We know only the tendency. We 
know that in the beginning, even in America, the right to vote was 
a very limited matter. In the early years in New England, only 
church members voted; then the franchise was extended to include 
property-owners, then it was enlarged to include all white male adults 
(with certain restrictions), then to include Negroes, then in several 
Western States, to include women. 

Thus the hne has been constantly advancing, but with manj'- 
fluctuations, eddies, and back-currents, like any other stream of 
progress. At the same time the fundamental principles which under- 
lie popular government, and especially the whole matter of popular 
sufi'rage, are much iii the pubhc mind. The tendency of govern- 
ment throughout the entire civilized world is strongly in the direc- 
tion of placing more and more power in the hands of a larger pro- 
portion of the people. 

In our own country we are enacting a remarkable group of 
laws providing for direct primaries in the nominations of public 



Problems of Citizenship 97 

officials, for direct election of United States senators and for direct 
legislation by means of the initiative and referendum, and we are 
even going to the point in many cities and states of permitting the 
people to recall an elected official who is unsatisfactory. The princi- 
ple of local option, which is nothing but that of direct government 
by the people, is being widely accepted. All these changes afTect, 
fundamentally, the historic structure of our government, making it 
less representative and more democratic. 

Still more important and far-reaching in its significance is the 
tendency of our govermnent, especially our cities and our federal 
government, to regulate or to appropriate business enterprises for- 
merly left wholly in private hands. More and more private business 
is becoming public business. 

Now, then, as the weight of responsibility upon the popular 
vote is increased, it becomes more and more important that the 
ballot should be jealously guarded and honestly exercised. In the 
last few years, therefore, a series of extraordinary new precautions 
have been adopted: the Australian ballot, more stringent registra- 
tion systems, the stricter enforcement of naturalization laws to pre- 
vent the voting of crowds of unprepared foreigners, and the imposi- 
tion by several states, rightly or wrongly, of educational or property 
tests. It becomes a more and more serious matter every year to 
be an American citizen, more of an honor, more of a duty. 

At the close of the Civil War, in a time of intense idealistic 
emotion, some three-quarters of a milhon of Negroes, the mass of 
them densely ignorant and just out of slavery, with the iron of 
slavery still in their souls, were suddenly given the political rights 
of free citizens. A great many people, and not in the South alone, 
thought then, and still think, that it was a mistake to bestow the 
high powers and privileges of a wholly unrestricted ballot — a ballot 
which is the symbol of intelhgent self-goverimient — upon the Negro. 
Other people, of whom I am one, believe that it was an unescapable 
concomitant of the revolution; it was itself a revolution, not a growth, 
and like every other revolution it had its fearful reaction. Revolu- 
tions, indeed, change names but they do not at once change human 
relationships. Mankind is reconstructed not by proclamations, or 
legislation, or military occupation, but by time, growth, religion, 
thought. At that time, then, the nation drove down the stakes of 
its idealism in government far beyond the point which it was able 



98 The Annals of the American Academy 

to reach in the liumdrum activities of everyday existence. A reac- 
tion was inevitable; it was inevitable and perfectly natural that 
there should be a widespread questioning as to whether all Negroes, 
or indeed anj^ Negroes, should properly be admitted to full political 
fellowship. That questioning continues to this day. 

Now, the essential principle established by this fifteenth amend- 
ment to the Constitution was not that all Negroes should necessarily 
be given an unrestricted ballot; but that the right to vote should 
not be denied or abridged "on account of race, color, or previous 
condition of servitude." This amendment wiped out the color line 
in politics so far as any written law could possibly do it. 

Let me here express my profound conviction that the principle 
of political equality then laid down is a sound, valid, and absolutely 
essential principle of any free government; that the restriction upon 
the ballot, when necessary, should be made to apply equally to white 
and colored citizens, and that the fifteenth amendment ought not 
to be repealed. Moreover, I am convinced that the principle of 
political equality is more firmly established today than it was forty 
years ago, when it had only Northern bayonets behind it. For 
now, however short the practice falls of reaching the legal standard, 
the principle is woven into the warp and woof of Southern life and 
Southern legislation. Not a few Southern white leaders of thought 
are today convinced, not forced believers in the principle, and that 
is a great omen. 

Limitations have come about, it is true, and were to be expected 
as the back-cm-rents of the revolution. Laws providing for educa- 
tional or property qualifications as a prerequisite to the exercise of 
suffrage have been passed in all the Southern States, and have oper- 
ated to exclude from the ballot large numbers of both white and 
colored citizens, who, on account of ignorance or poverty, are unable 
to meet the tests. These provisions, whatever the opinion enter- 
tamed as to the wisdom of such laws, are well within the principle 
laid down by the fifteenth amendment. But several Southern States 
have gone a step farther, and have passed the so-called "grandfather 
laws," the effect of which is to exempt certain ignorant white men 
from the necessity of meeting the educational and property tests. 
Some of these unfair "grandfather laws" have now expired by lim- 
itation in the states adopting them and some are in process of being 
tested in the courts. 



Problems of Citizenship 99 

Let me, then, lay down this general proposition: 

Nowhere in the South today is the Negro cut off legally, as a 
Negro, from the ballot. Legally, today, any Negro who can meet 
the comparatively slight requirements as to education, or proper tj% 
or both, can cast his ballot on a basis of equality with the white 
man. I have emphasized the word legally, for I know the practical 
difficulties which confront the Negro voter in many parts of the 
South. In the enforcement of the law, the legislative ideal is still 
pegged out far beyond the actual performance. 

Now, then, if we are interested in the problem of democracy, 
we have two courses open to us. We may think the laws are unjust 
to the Negro, and incidentally to the poor white man as well. If 
we do we have a perfect right to agitate for a change, and we can 
do much to disclose, without heat, the actual facts regarding the 
complicated and vexatious legislative situation in the South, as 
regards the suffrage. Every change in the legislation upon this 
subject should, indeed, be jealously watched that the principle of 
political equality between the races be not legally curtailed. The 
doctrine laid do^ai in the fifteenth amendment must, at any hazard, 
be maintained. 

But personally, and I am here voicing a profound conviction, 
I think our emphasis at present should be laid upon the practical 
rather than upon the legal aspect of the problem. I think we should 
take advantage of the widely prevalent feeling in the South that 
the question of suffrage has been settled, legally, for some time to 
come; of the desire on the part of many Southern people, both white 
and colored, to turn aside from the discussion of the political status 
of the Negro. In short, let us for the time being accept the laws 
as they are, and build upward from that point. Let us turn our 
attention to the practical task of finding out why it is that the laws 
we already have are not enforced, and how best to secure an honest 
vote for every Negro and equally for every "poor white" man, 
(and there are thousands of him) who is able to meet the require- 
ments, but who for one reason or another does not or cannot exer- 
cise his rights. 

Taking up this side of the question we shall discover two entirely 
distinct difficulties: 

First, we shall find many Negroes, and indeed hundreds of 
thousands of white men as well, who might vote, but who through 



100 The Annals of the American Academy 

ignorance, or the inability or unwillingness to pay poll taxes, or from 
mere lack of interest, disfranchise themselves. 

The second difficulty is peculiar to the Negro. It consists in 
open or concealed intimidation on the part of the white men who 
control the election machinery. In many places in the South today 
no Negro, no matter how well qualified, would dare to present him- 
self for registration. When he does he is often rejected for some 
trivial or illegal reason. 

Thus we have to meet a vast amount of apathy and ignorance 
and poverty on the one hand, and the threat of intimidation on 
the other. 

First of all, for it is the chief injustice as between white and 
colored men that we have to deal — an injustice which the law 
already makes punishable — how shall we meet the matter of intimi- 
dation? As I have said already the door of the suffrage is every- 
where legally open to the Negro, but a certain sort of Southerner 
bars the passageway. He stands there and, law or no law, keeps 
out many Negroes who might vote, and he represents in most parts 
of the South the prevailing public opinion. 

Shall we meet this situation by force? What force is available? 
Shall the North go down and fight the South? But the North today 
has no feeling but friendship for the South. More than that, and 
I say it with all seriousness, because it represents what I have heard 
wherever I have gone in the North to make inquiries regarding the 
Negro problem, the North, wrongly or rightly, is today more than 
half convinced that the South is right in imposing some measure 
of limitation upon the franchise. There is now, in short, no dis- 
position anj^vhere in the North to interfere in the internal affairs 
of the South — not even with the force of public opinion. 

What other force, then, is to be invoked? Shall the Negro 
revolt? Shall he migrate? The very asking of these questions sug- 
gests the inevitable reply. 

We might as well, here and now, dismiss the idea of force, 
express or implied. There are times of last resort which call for 
force (and the time may come in the future when force will again 
have to be applied to cure injustice); but this plainly is not such 
a time. 

What other alternatives are there? 

Accepting the laws as they are, then, there are two methods 
of procedure, neither sensational, nor exciting. 



Problems of Citizenship 101 

The underlying causes of the trouble in the country being plainly 
ignorance and prejudice, we must meet ignorance and prejudice with 
their antidotes: education and association. 

Every effort should be made to extend free education both 
among Negroes and white people. A great extension of education 
is now going forward in the South. The Negro is not by any means 
getting his full share (indeed he is getting shamefully less than his 
share), but as certainly as sunshine makes things grow, education 
in the South will produce tolerance. That there is already such a 
growing tolerance no one who has talked with, the leading white 
men of the South can doubt. The old fire-eating, Negro-baiting 
leaders of the Tillman- Vardaman type are passing away : a far better 
and broader group is coming into power. 

In his last book Mr. Edgar Gardner Murphy, of Alabama, 
expresses this new point of view when he says: 

There is no question here as to the unrestricted admission (to the ballot) 
of the great masses of our ignorant and semi-ignorant blacks. I know no 
advocate of such an admission. But the question is as to whether the indi- 
viduals of the race, upon conditions of restriction legally imposed and fairly 
administered, shall be admitted to an adequate and increasing representa- 
tion in the electorate. And as that question is more seriously and more gen- 
erally considered many of the leading publicists of the South, I am glad to 
say, are quietly resolved that the answer shall be in the affirmative. 

From an able Southern white man, a resident of New Orleans, 
I received only recently a letter containing these words: 

"I believe we have reached the bottom, and a sort of quiescent 
period. I think it most likely that from now on there will be a 
gradual increase in the Negro vote. And I honestly believe that 
the less said about it, the surer the increase will be." 

Education, and by education I mean education of all sorts, 
industrial, professional, classical, in accordance with each man's tal- 
ents will not only produce breadth and tolerance, but it will help 
to cure the apathy which now keeps so many thousands of both 
white men and Negroes from the polls: for it will show them that 
it is necessary for every man to exercise all the political rights within 
his reach. For if he fails voluntarily to take advantage of the 
rights he already has, how shall he acquire more rights? 

As ignorance must be met by education, so prejudice must be 
met with its antidote, which is association. Democracy does not 



102 The Annals of the American Academy 

consist in mere voting, but in association, the spirit of common 
effort, of which the ballot is a visible expression. When we come 
to know one another we soon find that the points of likeness are 
much more numerous than the points of difference. And this human 
association for the common good, which is democracy, is difficult 
to bring about anywhere, whether among different classes of white 
people, or between white people and Negroes. 

After the Atlanta riot I attended a number of conferences be- 
tween leading white men and leading colored men. It is true these 
meetings bore evidence of awkwardness and embarrassment, for they 
were among the first of that sort to take place in the South, but 
they were none the less valuable. A white man told me after one 
of these meetings: "I did not know there were any such sensible 
Negroes in the South." And a Negro told me that it was the first 
time in his life that he had ever heard a Southern white man reason 
in a friendly manner with a Negro concerning their common difla- 

culfifes. 

More and more these associations of white and colored men, 
at certain points of contact, must and will come about. Ah-eady, 
in connection with various educational and business projects in the 
South, white men and colored men meet on common grounds, and 
the way has been open^ to a wider mutual understanding. And 
it is common enough now, where it was unheard of a few years ago, 
for both white men and Negroes to speak from the same platform 
in the South. I have attended a number of such meetings. Thus 
slowly, awkwardly at first— for two centuries of prejudice are not 
easily overcome — the white man and Negro are coming to Imow 
each other, not as master and servant, but as co-workers. These 
things cannot be forced. 

One reason why the white man and the Negro have not got 
together more rapidly in the South than they have, is because they 
have tried always to meet at the sorest points. When sensible 
people, who must live together whether or no, find that there are 
points at which they cannot agree, it is the part of wisdom to avoid 
those points, and to meet upon other and common interests. Upon 
no other terms, indeed, can a democracy exist, for in no imaginable 
future state will individuals cease to disagree with one another 
upon something less than half of all the prol^lems of life. 

"Here we all live together in a great country," say the apostles 



Problems of Citizenship 103 

of this view, "let us all get together and develop it. Let the Negro 
do his best to educate himself, to own his own land, and to buy and 
sell with the white people in the fairest possible way " 

Now, buying and selling, land ownership and common material 
pursuits may not be the highest points of contact between man and 
man, but they are real points, and they help to give men an idea 
of the worth of their fellows, white or black. How many times, 
in the South, I have heard a white man speak in high admiration 
for some Negro farmer who had been successful, or of some Negro 
blacksmith who was a worthy citizen, or some Negro doctor who 
was a leader of his race. 

It is curious once a man (any man, white or black) learns to 
do his job well how he finds himself in a democratic relationship 
with other men. I remember asking a prominent white citizen of 
a town in central Georgia if he knew anything about Tuskegee. He 
said : 

Yes; I had rather a curious experience last fall. I was building a hotel 
and couldn't get anyone to do the plastering as I wanted it done. One day 
I saw two Negro plasterers at work in a new house that a friend of mine was 
building. I watched them for an hour. They seemed to know their trade. 
I invited them to come over and see me. They came, took the contract for 
my work, hired a white man to cari'y mortar at a dollar a day, and when 
they got through it was the best job of plastering in town. I found that they 
had learned their trade at Tuskegee. They averaged four dollars a day each 
in wages. We tried to get them to locate in our town, but they went back to 
school. 

Out of such crude points of contact will grow an ever finer and 
finer spirit of association and of common and friendly knowledge. 
And that will lead inevitably to an extension upon the soundest 
possible basis of Negro franchise. I know cases where white men 
have urged intelligent Negroes to cast their ballots, and have stood 
sponsor for them out of genuine respect. Today, Negroes who 
vote in the South are as a class, men of substance and intelligence, 
fully equal to the tasks of citizenship. 

Thus I have confidence not only in the sense of the white man 
in the South but in the innate capability of the Negro — and that 
once these two really come to know each other, not at sore points 
of contact, nor as mere master and servant, but as workers for a 
common country, the question of suffrage will gradually solve itseK 
in the interest of true democracy. 



104 The Annals of the American Academy 

Another influence also will tend to change the status of the 
Negro as a voter. That is the pending break-up of the political 
solidarity of the South. All the signs point to a political re-align- 
ment upon new issues in this country, both South and North. Old 
])arty names may even pass away. And that break-up, with the 
attendant struggle for votes, is certain to bring into politics thou- 
sands of Negroes and white men now disfranchised. The result of 
a real division on live issues has been shown in many local contests 
in the South, as in the fight against the saloons, when every qualified 
Negro voter, and every Negro who could qualify, was eagerly pushed 
forward by one side or the other. With such a division on new 
issues the Negro will tend to exercise more and more political power, 
dividing not on the color line, but on the principles at stake. Still 
another influence which is helping to solve the problem is the wider 
tliflusion of Negroes throughout the country. The proi)ortion of 
Negroes to the whites in most of the Southern States is decreasing, 
thereby relieving the fear of Negro domination, whereas Negroes 
are increasing largely in Northern communities, where they take 
thteir place in ])olitics not as an indigestible mass, but divide along 
party lines even more readily than some of the foreign-American 
groups in our population. A study of the Negro vote in November, 
1912, would show that many Negroes broke their historic allegiance 
with the Republican party and voted for Roosevelt, while some 
even cast their votes for Wilson; and in local elections the division 
is still more marked. 

Thus in spite of the difl^culties which now confront the Negro, 
I cannot help looking upon the situation with a spirit of optimism. 
I think sometimes we are tempted to set a higher value upon the 
ritual of a belief than upon the spirit which underlies it. The ballot 
is not democracy; it is merely the symbol or ritual of democracy, 
and it may be full of passionate social significance, or it may be a 
mere empty and dangerous formalism. What we should look to, 
then, primarily, is not the shadow, but the substance of democracy 
in this country. Nor must we look for results too swiftly; our 
progress toward democracy is slow of growth and needs to be culti- 
vated with patience and watered with faith. 



CONDITIONS AMONG NEGROES IN THE CITIES 
By George Edmund Haynes, Ph.D., 

Director, National League on Urban Conditions among Negroes; Professor 
of Social Science, Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn. 

Fifty years after four millions of Negro slaves were made freed- 
men, there is still the responsibility upon the nation to make that 
seeming freedom really free. So many other national problems thrust 
themselves upon the attention of the people today that there is danger 
lest the nation grow forgetful of the tremendous portent of this 
special responsibility left it from the past. The present generation 
is doubtless just as loyal to the principles of liberty and just as 
faithful to the ideals of democracy as were the fathers of the repub- 
lic, but the principles and ideals of the American people are meeting 
the challenge of latter day problems, and the people may become 
unmindful of unfinished tasks. Thus the condition of the Negro 
may receive less attention from the nation; his economic and social 
difficulties may be less generally known; his migrations and concen- 
tration in cities, North and South, are given less attention. The 
increasing segregated settlements and life of Negroes within the 
cities may excite less concern. The resulting intensified industrial, 
housing, health and other maladjustments and the Negro's heroic 
struggles to overcome these maladjustments are in these days Ukely 
to be little considered. These conditions demand thought. 

I. THE URBAN MOVEMENT 

But social changes do not frequently keep time with social 
thought, for they are usually the result of unconscious social forces. 
Many of the changes among Negroes, especially the change from 
country to city, have been of such a character. 

The past half century has seen an acceleration of the urban 
migration of the entire population. The Negro has been in that 
population stream. At times and in places his movement cityward 
has been affected by special influences, but where influences have 
been similar his movement has been similar. 

The Emancipation Proclamation not only abolished the owner- 

105 



lOS The Annals of the American' Academy 

The divorce of the Negro from the soil after emancipation, and 
the gro-tt-th of the industrial and commercial centers are causes 
which are supplemented by the effect of higher wages paid weekl}' 
or monthly in the city on the economic motives of workers; by the 
trend of legislation, especially labor laws, which favor the city and 
which, in practical effect in some parts of the South, make harder 
the uninviting lot of the land tenant; by improved educational and 
amusement facihties, and by the contact with the moving crowds; 
while the paved and lighted streets, the greater comforts of the 
houses and other conveniences which the rustic imagines he can 
easily get and the dazzling glare of the unknown great world are 
viewed in decided contrast to the hard, humdrum conditions and 
poor accommodations on plantation and farm. 

The available facts and figures bear out the conclusion that 
along with, the white population the Negroes, under the influence of 
causes likely to operate for an indefinite period, will continue to 
migrate to the towns and cities, and that they will come in com- 
paratively large numbers to stay. 

Already the Negro urban population has growTi to considerable 
proportions. In 1860 it is estimated that about 4.2 per cent of all 
the Negroes in the United States were urban dwellers (places of 
4,000 or more). By 1890 it had risen to 19.8 per cent (places of 
2,500 or more; the figures for 1890 and since are not, therefore, 
comparable with those for censuses preceding) ; in 1900 it was 22.7 
per cent, and in 1910, 27.4 per cent, or more than one-fourth of 
the total Negro population. In 1910 thirty-nine cities had 10,000 
or more Negroes, and the following twelve cities had more than 
40,000 Negroes each: 

Atlanta, Ga 51,902 

Baltimore, Md 84,749 

Birmingham, Ala 52,305 

Chicago, 111 44,103 

Louisville, Ky 40,522 

Memphis, Tenn 52,441 

New Orleans, La 89,262 

New York, N. Y 91,709 

Philadelphia, Pa 84,459 

Richmond, Va - ■ • • 46,733 

St. Louis, Mo 43,960 

Washington, D. C 94,446 



Conditions Among Negroes in the Cities 109 

Negroes constituted one-fourth or more of the total population 
of twenty-seven principal cities (25,000 or more total population), 
and in four of these cities — \\z., ^Montgomerj', Ala., Jacksonville 
Fla., Savannah, Ga. and Charleston, S. C. — the Negro population 
was something more than one-half. 

II. SEGREGATION WITHIN THE CITY 

^Migration to the city is being followed by segregation into dis- 
tricts and neighborhoods within the city. In Northern cities years 
ago Negro residents, for the most part, lived where their purses 
allowed. With the influx of thousands of immigrants from the 
South and the West Indies, both native Negro and newcomer have 
been lumped together into distinct neighborhoods. In Southern 
cities domestic servants usually still live upon the premises of their 
employers or near by. But the gro^\'ing Negro business and pro- 
fessional classes and those engaged in other than domestic and per- 
sonal ser\'ice find separate sections in which to dwell. Thus the 
Negro ghetto is growing up. New York has its "San Juan Hill" 
in the West Sixties, and its Harlem district of over 35,000 within 
about eighteen city blocks; Philadelphia has its Seventh Ward; 
Chicago has its State Street; Washington its North West neigkbor- 
hood, and Baltimore its Druid Hill Avenue. Louis\'ille has its 
Chestnut Street and its "Smoketown;" Atlanta its West End and 
Auburn Avenue. These are examples taken at random which are 
typical of cities, large and small, North and South. 

This segregation within the city is caused by strong forces at 
work both u-ithin and A\-ithout the body of the Negroes themselves. 
Naturally, Negroes desire to be together. The consciousness of kind 
in racial, famih' and friendly ties binds them closer to one another 
than to their white fellow-citizens. But as Negroes develop in intel- 
ligence, in their standard of living and economic power, they desire 
better houses, better public facilities and other conveniences not 
usually obtainable in the sections allotted to their less fortunate 
black brothers. To obtain these advantages they seek other neigh- 
borhoods, just as the European immigrants who are crowded into seg- 
regated sections of our cities seek better surroundings when they 
are economically able to secure them. 

But a prejudiced opposition from his prospective white neigh- 



no The tVjstnals of the American Academy 

bors confronts the Negro, which does not meet the immigrant who 
has shuffled off the coil of his Continental condition. Intelligence 
and culture do not often discount color of skin. Professions of 
democratic justice in the North, and deeds of individual kindness 
in the South, have not yet secured to Negroes the unmolested 
residence in blocks with white fellow-citizens. In Northern cities 
where larger liberty in some avenues obtains, the home life, 
the church life and much of the business and community life of 
Negroes are carried on separately and apart from the common life 
of the whole people. In Southern communities, with separate street- 
car laws, separate places of amusement and recreation, separate 
hospitals and separate cemeteries, there is sharp cleavage be- 
tween whites and Negroes, living and dead. With separation in 
neighborhoods, in work, in churches, in homes and in almost every 
phase of their life, there is growing up in the cities of America a 
distinct Negro world, isolated from many of the impulses of the 
common life and little known and understood by the white world 
about it. 

III. THE SEQUEL OF SEGREGATION 

In the midst of this migration and segregation, the Negro is 
trying to make a three-fold adjustment, each phase of which requires 
heroic struggle. First, there is the adjustment that all rural popu- 
lations have to make in learning to live in town. Adjustment to 
conditions of housing, employment, amusement, etc., is necessary 
for all who make the change from country to city. The Negro must 
make a second adjustment from the status of a chattel to that of 
free contract, from servitude to citizenship. He has to realize in 
his own consciousness the self-confidence of a free man. Finally, 
the Negro must adjust himself to the white population in the cities, 
and it is no exaggeration of the facts to say that generally today 
the attitude of this white population is either indifferent or preju- 
diced or both. 

Now, the outcome of segregation in such a serious situation is 
first of all to create an attitude of suspicion and hostility between 
the best elements of the two races. Too much of the Negro's knowl- 
edge of the white world comes through demagogues, commercial 
sharks, yellow journalism and those "citizens" who compose the 
mobs, while too much of the white man's knowledge of the Negro 



Conditions Among Negroes in the Cities 111 

people is derived from similar sources, from domestic servants and 
from superficial observation of the loafers about the streets. The 
best elements of both races, thus entirely removed from friendly 
contact, except for the chance meeting of individuals in the market 
place, know hardly anything of their common life and tend to become 
more suspicious and hostile toward each other than toward strangers 
from a far country. 

The white community is thus frequently led to unjust judg- 
ments of Negroes and Negro neighborhoods, as seen in the soubriquets 
of ''little Africa," "black bottom," "Niggertown," "Smoketown, 
"Buzzard's Alley," "Chinch-row," and as indicated by the fact that 
the individuals and families who live in these neighborhoods are 
all lumped by popular opinion into one class. Only here and there 
does a white person come to know that "there are Negroes and 
Negroes just as there are white folks and white folks." The most 
serious side of this attitude and opinion is, that the Negro is handi- 
capped by them in securing the very things that would help him 
in working out his own salvation. 

1. The Sequel in Housing Conditions 

In the matter of the housing conditions under which he must live, 
reliable investigations have shown that in several cities the "red-light" 
districts of white people are either in the midst of, or border closely 
upon Negro neighborhoods. Also respectable Negroes often find it im- 
possible to free themselves from disreputable and vicious neighbors of 
their own race, because the localities in which both may live are limited. 
And on top of this, Negroes often pay higher rentals for accommo- 
dations similar to those of white tenants, and, frequently, improved 
houses are secured only when white people who occupied them have 
moved on to something better. In Southern cities, many of the 
abler classes of Negroes have escaped the environment of the vicious 
element by creating decent neighborhoods through home ownership, 
and by eternal vigilance, excluding saloons, gambling places or 
other degrading agencies. For the poorer and less thrifty element, 
in a number of towns and cities, loose building regulations allow 
greedy landlords to profit by "gun-barrel" shanties and cottages, 
by "arks," of which the typical pigeon-house would be a construc- 
tion model, and by small houses crowded upon the same lot, often 
facing front street, side street and the alley, with lack of sewerage 



112 The Annals of the American Academy 

and with other sanitary neglect, which an inspector of one Southern 
city described as "a crying disgrace to any civiUzed people." 

Yet, in the face of these handicaps, thousands of homes that 
would do credit to any people on earth are springing up in these 
cities. In the absence or with the indifference of sanitary authori- 
ties, intelligent Negroes are not only struggling to free themselves 
from disease-breeding surroundings, but they are teaching the unin- 
telligent throng. In spite of spontaneous schemes of real estate 
owners and agents to keep them out of desirable neighborhoods, 
in spite of the deliberate designs of city segregation ordinances such 
as have been passed in several cities and attempted in others, in 
spite of intimidation, the abler Negroes in some cities are buying 
homes and creating decent neighborhoods in which to live. How- 
ever, the larger proportion are rent payers and not owners, hence 
they need intelligent leadership and influential support in their 
efforts for improved housing and neighborhood conditions. 

2. The Economic Sequel 

Three facts should be placed in the foreground in looking at 
the economic conditions of the segregated Negro in the city. First, 
the masses of those who have migrated to town are unprepared to 
meet the exacting requirements of organized industry, and the keen 
competition of more efficient laborers. Second, organized facilities 
for training these inefficient, groping seekers for something better 
are next to nothing in practically all the cities to which they are 
flocking. They, therefore, drift hit or miss into any occupations 
which are held out to their unskilled hands and untutored brains. 
Natural aptitude enables many to "pick up" some skill, and these 
succeed in gaining a stable place. But the thousands work from 
day to day with that weak tenure and frequent change of place 
from which all unskilled, unorganized laborers suffer under modern 
industry and trade. 

The third fact of prime importance is the prejudice of the white 
industrial world, which the Negro must enter to earn his food, shelter 
and raiment. This prejudice, when displayed by employers, is partly 
due to the inefficiency indicated above and the failure to discrimi- 
nate between the efficient individual and this untrained throng. 
When exhibited by fellow wage-earners, it is partly due to fear of 
probable successful competitors and to the belief that the Negro 



Conditions Among Negroes in the Cities 113 

has "his place" fixed by a previous condition of servitude. But in 
the cases of many employers and employees, as shown in numbers of 
instances carefully investigated, the opposition to the Negro in 
industrial pursuits is due to a whimsical dislike of anj^ workman 
who is not white and especially of one who is black! 

The general result of this inefficiency, of this lack of facilities and 
guidance for occupational training which would overcome the defect, 
and of this dwarfing prejudice is far-reaching. In both Northern 
and Southern cities the result is a serious limitation of the occupa- 
tional field for Negroes, thus robbing them of better income and 
depriving the community of a large supply of valuable potential 
labor. Examination of occupational statistics for Northern cities 
shows that from about three-fourths to about nine-tenths of Negro 
males engaged in gainful occupations are employed in domestic and 
personal service. Workmen in industries requiring skill are so well 
organized in the North that Negroes in any numbers must enter 
the trades through union portals. Only in late years, and frequently 
at the time of strikes, as in the building trades' strike of 1900, the 
stockyards' strike of 1904, and the teamsters' strike of 1905 in 
Chicago, has the Negro been recognized as a fellow-workman whose 
interests are common with the cause of organized labor. A large 
assortment of testimony lately gathered by Atlanta University from 
artisans and union officials in all parts of the country gives firm 
ground for the conclusion that, except in some occupations largely 
the building and mining trades, white union men are yet a long 
distance from heartily receiving Negro workmen on equal terms. 

In Southern cities Negro labor is the main dependence and 
manual labor is slow to lose the badge of servitude. But for selected 
occupations in Southern cities between 1890 and 1900 the rate of 
increase in domestic and personal service occupations among Negroes 
was greater than those in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits, 
and than those in trade and transportation, if draymen, haclonen, and 
teamsters are omitted from the last classification. The occupations 
of barbering, whitewashing, laundering etc., are being absorbed by 
white men. The white firemen of the Georgia Railroad and Queen 
and Crescent Railway, struck because these companies insisted upon 
giving Negro firemen employment on desirable trains. These are 
indications of a possible condition when the desire of white men 
for places held by Negroes becomes a matter of keen competition. 



114 The Annals of the American Academy 

An able writer on the Negro problem has asserted that in the South 
the Negroes can get any work "under the sun." But since an 
increasing proportion of modern industry is conducted in the shade, 
the Southern city Negro of tomorrow may find it as difficult to 
wedge his way into the better paid occupations as does his black 
brother in the North now. 

When it comes to the question of business experience and oppor- 
tunity, the sea is still thicker with reefs and shoals. A Negro who 
wants training and experience in some line of business that he may 
begin some enterprise of his own, finds, except in very rare cases, 
the avenues to positions in white estabhshments which would give 
him this experience closed. The deadline of his desire is a messen- 
ger's place or a porter's job. How can a porter learn to run a mer- 
cantile establishment or a messenger understand how to manage a 
bank? His only alternative, inexperienced as he may be, is to risk 
his meager savings in venturing upon an unsounded sea. Ship- 
wreck is necessarily the rule, and successful voyage the exception. 

The successes, however, in both industry and trade are multi- 
plying, and with substantial encouragement may change the rule 
to exception in the teeth of excessive handicaps. There was an 
increase between 1890 and 1900 of 11.6 per cent of Negroes engaged 
in selected skilled and semi-skilled occupations in Southern cities. In 
1910 the executive council of the American Federation of Labor unani- 
mously passed a resolution inviting Negroes, along with other races, 
into its ranks. Some of its affiliated bodies have shown active sym- 
pathy with this sentiment, and have taken steps in different cities to 
bring in Negro workmen. All of eleven Negro inventors of 1911 were 
city dwellers. The "Freedmen's Bank," which had branches in 
about thirty-five cities and towns failed in 1873. During its exis- 
tence it held deposits of over $50,000,000 of savings of the freedmen. 
Although the confidence of the freedmen was shaken to its founda- 
tion, they have rallied and in 1911 there were 64 private Negro 
banks in the towns and cities of the country. Many of these are 
thriving institutions. There is no means of knowing the number 
and importance of other Negro business enterprises. But judging 
from studies of Negro business enterprises made in Philadelphia 
and in New York City, and from the widespread attendance upon 
the annual meetings of the National Negro Business League, sub- 
stantial progress is triumphing over unusual obstacles. 



Conditions Among Negroes in the Cities 115 

3. The Sequel in Health and Morals 

Crowded into segregated districts; living in poor houses for the 
most part for which they pay high rentals; often untaught and with- 
out teachers in the requirements of town life; walled in by ineffi- 
ciency, lack of training and the chance to get the training; usually 
restricted from well-paid occupations by the prejudice of fellow-em- 
ployees and frequently by the prejudice of employers; with a small 
income and the resulting low standard of living, the wonder is not 
that Negroes have a uniformly higher death-rate than whites in the 
cities and towns, but that the mortality is as small as it is and 
shows signs of decrease. Forced by municipal indifferences or design 
in many cities to live in districts contaminated by houses and per- 
sons of ill-fame; unable often to drive from their residential districts 
saloons and dens of vice; feeling the pressure of the less moral ele- 
ments of both races, and feeling that weight of police and courts 
which the poor and the oppressed undoubtedly experience, the mar- 
vel is not that the criminal records outrun other elements of our 
urban population, but that impartial observers both North and 
South testify to the large law-abiding Negro citizenship, and to the 
thousands of pure individuals, Christian homes and communities.^ 

In speaking of the Negro death-rate in Southern cities, Fred- 
erick L. Hoffman, who cannot be charged with favorable bias, said 
in 19D6, "without exception, the death-rates are materially in excess 
of the corresponding death-rates of the white population, but there 
has also been in this case a persistent decline in the general death- 
rate from 38.1 per 1,000 in 1871 to 32.9 in 1886 and 28.1 in 1904." 
Data from other investigations for five Southern cities (three cities 
not included in Mr. Hoffman's studies) show results similar to his. 
Figures for the death-rate of Negroes in Northern cities are not 
available. 

Infant mortality, tuberculosis and pneumonia are chief causes 
of the excessive death-rate. Negroes in cities have an excessive 
number of female breadwinners, and a large proportion of these 
are marided women. The neglect of the child, while the mother 
is "working out" during the long hours of domestic service, and 
ignorance of child nurture are the ingredients of the soothing-syrup 

1 The writer has had t© condense into a few clauses here the conclusions 
from a large amount of testimony and facts. 



116 The Annals of the American Academy 

which lulls thousands of small children into the sleep of death. 
Undernourishment due to low paj^, bad housing, poor sanitation, 
ignorant fear of "night air" and lack of understanding of the dan- 
gers of infection make Negroes the prey of diseases now clearly 
proven preventable. With an aroused public conscience for sani- 
tation and adequate leadership in education on matters of health 
these conditions are gradually removable. 

The mental and moral conditions of a people cannot be shown 
by case counting. Tables of criminal statistics are quite as much 
a commentary on the culture conditions of the whole community 
as upon the accused Negro. The best study of crime in cities showed 
that down to 1903 there was a general tendency toward a decrease 
among Negroes. Available testimony for Southern cities from the 
days of the Freedmen's Bureau superintendence down to the pres- 
ent time is decidedly in favor of the Negro, even under an archaic 
penal system. Personal observation for fifteen years during resi- 
dence in and repeated visits to a score of the larger cities and a 
number of the smaller ones, leave the writer with a firm conviction 
of decided advancement. The intelligence and character demanded 
of ministers, teachers, doctors, lawyers and other professional classes, 
the drawing of social lines based upon individual worth, the im- 
proved type of amusement and recreation frequently in evidence 
and similar manifestations are a part of the barometer which clearly 
shows progress. 

4. TJie Sequel in Miscellaneous Conditions 

To make the view of urban situation among Negroes full and 
clear, a number of conditions which exist in some cities but are 
absent in others should be included in the list. In many cities the 
sequel of segregation means less effective police patrol and inade- 
quate fire protection ; in others it means unpaved streets, the absence 
of proper sewerage and lack of other sanitary supervision and re- 
quirements. 

The provision which people have for the play life of their chil- 
dren and themselves is nearly as important as the conditions of 
labor. Facilities for amusement and recreation, then, are of great 
importance to the Negro. Wholesome amusement for all the people 
is just beginning to receive deserved attention. But the Negro is 



Conditions Among Negroes in the Cities 117 

in danger of being left out of account in the movement. Play- 
grounds in Negro neighborhoods are so rare as to excite curiosity, 
and organized play is just being heard of in the Negro world. There 
is hardly a city where unhindered access to theatres and moving 
picture shows exists. In a few Southern cities "Negro parks" of 
fair attractiveness are being provided because exclusion from public 
parks used by whites has been the custom. Here and there enter- 
prising Negroes are starting playhouses for their own people. 

In the provision for education, the opportunity of the city 
Negro is much greater than that of his rural brother. Yet, while 
one rejoices over this fact, candor compels consideration of the rela- 
tive educational chances of the black boy and the white one. Some 
of the Northern cities which have no official or actual separation in 
public schools may be passed without scrutiny. In others and in 
some border cities like St. Louis, Washington and Louisville, where 
there are separate schools, the standards and equipment for the 
Negro schools compare favorably. Also a large need of praise is 
due Southern communities for the great advance which has been 
made in public opinion and financial support for Negro education. 
Yet, in many cities, although local pride may apply names and give 
glowing descriptions, those who have seen the public school systems 
at close range know that they are poor compared with white schools 
in the same places. The bona-fide Negro public high schools in 
the cities of the South can be counted on the fingers of the two 
hands. Public schools all over the land have been tardy to the call 
of the educational needs of the masses of the people. The "dead 
hand" of past aims, content and methods of education still clasps 
many communities in its icy grip. It is well-nigh impossible to 
tell in a generalized statement the significance of this condition as 
applied to the city Negro. The hopeful sign of the situation is the 
awakening of the South to the need. 

IV. suggestions for solution 

The recital of the foregoing facts and conclusions would be of 
little consequence unless it led somewhere. The summary of the 
discussion presents a clear case of a large nation-wide Negro migra- 
tion to towns and cities, such as is taking place among the entire 
people; a segregation within the city of Negroes into distinct neigh- 



118 The Annals of the American Academy 

borhoods with a decreasing contact with the larger community and 
its impulses; accompanying housing, economic, health, moral, edu- 
cational and other conditions which are more critical and are receiv- 
ing less attention than similar problems among the white people. 
With such a problem before us, what should be done? 

1. There should be an organized effort to acquaint the Negro 
in the country with the desirability of his remaining where he is 
unless by education and training he is prepared to meet the exactions 
of adjustments to city life. The roseate picture of city existence 
should be corrected. Simultaneously with the agricultural and other 
improvements of country life calculated to make its economic and 
social conditions more attractive should go an effort to minimize 
the activities of labor agents, employment agency sharks and the 
other influences that lure the rustics from home. 

2. Recognizing that already more than two score cities and 
towns have large Negro populations in the first stages of adjustment, 
organized effort should be made to help the Negro to learn to live 
in town. The thoughtful white and colored people in each com- 
munity will have to break the bonds of this increasing segregation 
and come into some form of organized community cooperation. The 
danger most to be feared is antagonism between the better element of 
both races, because they may not know and understand each other. 
The meeting on the high levels of mutual sympathy and cooperation 
will work wonders with prejudices and conventional barriers. 

3. The cooperative movement of the white and colored citizens 
of each locality should work out a community program for the 
neighborhood, housing, economic, educational, religious and other 
improvement of the Negro. The time is at hand when we should 
not let this matter longer drift. 

4. Such a movement should sooner or later become conscious 
of the national character of the problem and the towns and cities 
should unite for the exchange of plans, methods and experience 
and for general cooperation and for developing needed enthusiasm. 

5. The Negro must have more and better trained leadership 
in these local situations. Slowly but surely we are listening to the 
lesson of group psychology and common sense and are beginning 
to use the most direct way of influencing the customs and habits 
of a people by giving them teachers and exemplars of their own 
kind. If the Negro is to be lifted to the full stature of American 



CoisiDiTioNS Among Negroes in the Cities 119 

civilization, he must have leaders — wise, well-trained leaders — who 
are learned in the American ways of thinking and of doing things. 
And it should never be forgotten that the Negro himself has valua- 
ble contributions to make to American life. 

6. The final suggestion is that the white people of each locality 
can best foster mutual confidence and cooperation of Negroes by 
according them impartial community justice. This means "a square 
deal" in industry, in education and in other parts of the common 
life. It means equality of opportunity. 

These conditions among Negroes in the cities arise as much 
from the many changes which are taking place in the life of the 
Negro as from the changes taking place in the life of the nation. 
The Negro is awakening to a race consciousness and to the con- 
sciousness of American citizenship. His migration is a part of his 
groping efforts to better his condition; he is trying to engage in 
industry and commerce and is accumulating wealth. Above the 
ruins of the slave cabin he is building homes. Upon the ash-cleared 
hearth of the chattel he is developing the sacredness of family rela- 
tionships. Where once he toiled that the children of others might 
have leisure and learning, he is trying to erect schools and colleges 
for the education of his own. In lieu of the superstition and ignor- 
ance which savagery and serfdom had made his dail}^ portion, the 
Negro is trying to cultivate an ethical and reUgious life beautiful in 
holiness and achieving in service. In these efforts for self-realiza- 
tion in the city the Negro needs the fair dealing, the sympathy and 
the cooperation of his white brother. For the problem of his ad- 
justment is only a part of the great human problem of justice for 
the handicapped in democratic America. 



CHURCHES AND RELIGIOUS CONDITIONS 

By J. J. Watson, Ph.D., 
Macon, Ga. 

The first thing to be kept in mind concerning the Negro church 
is that it is the only institution which the Negro may call his own. 
If he is a teacher he must be examined by the white school board, 
teach in a building owned by the white county officials, and receive 
his salary from the white superintendent. The same is true of the 
colored lawyer or doctor; he must receive from the white authorities 
his license to practice law or medicine, and this is granted under 
conditions formulated entirely independently of the Negro. But 
with the church it is altogether different. So long as the Negro 
conforms to the general laws of the state he is absolutely free to 
direct his church affairs as he sees fit. Error may be taught, immo- 
rality may thrive, and funds be misappropriated, all without feeling 
the pressure of any outside authority. A new church may be built, 
a new pastor installed, new members received and all the machinery 
of the church set in motion without ever consulting any white per- 
son. In a word, the church is the Negro's own institution, devel- 
oped according to his own standards, and more nearly than anything 
else represents the real life of the race. 

Another primary factor is the Negro's religious temperament. 
He has the simplicity of a child in the presence of the unseen forces 
of life, and readily yields to the demands of reverence and worship. 
Whatever is mysterious appeals to his uncultivated mind. In all 
matters concerning death and the future life his attitude is one of 
dread and gloom. His feelings are easily aroused, not so much by 
sight or thought as by sound. Whatever is weird or sad awakens 
an instinctive response in the bosom of the colored man. All of 
his songs and most of his preaching illustrate this primary fact; 
and the preacher who would teach his people must clothe his mes- 
sage in picturesque forms and deliver it in that peculiar sing-song 
voice so irresistible to the average Negro. ISIany times I have 
heard the better type of preacher trying to impress some message 

120 



Churches and Religious Conditions 121 

upon his people with no response whatever until he abandoned the 
formal presentation and took up the weird swinging rhythm so dear 
to the hearts of his hearers. The effect is always instantaneous. It 
is like the words of an old song to a man far from home. The first 
note is sufficient to stir the inmost springs of his emotional life. 
It is this appeal to the emotions which makes the church and the 
religious ceremony so dear to the heart of the Negro. The church 
is the one place where he can pour out his heart and revel in the 
unchecked flow of feeling and sentiment. 

The Negro is often criticised for this emotionalism, and the 
colored preacher blamed for appealing to it in his sermons, but it 
is very doubtful whether the race is at present prepared for any- 
thing else. In the best educated circles, of course, there are many 
who can enjoy an intellectual sermon; but congregations in which 
the educated class predominates are very scarce, and even in the 
large cities today the preacher who appeals to the emotions will 
soon win over to his church many of the members of his more 
scholarly brother in the next block. Few things in the colored min- 
istry today are more pathetic than the struggle of a conscientious 
pastor trying to protect his people and prevent them from running 
off after some sensational preacher who has just come to town. 
This situation prevails wherever the Negro Hves toda}^ and in more 
than one large church in Philadelphia is a very pressing problem. 
Unless a colored preacher has some strong institutional organization 
or a very powerful personal attraction he is almost compelled to 
yield to this elemental demand of his race. He must first of all 
make them "feel good," and if in doing so he can impress some 
valuable truth he is fortunate. 

The power of the emotional appeal has only been strengthened 
by the traditional training of the race. Through his whole history 
the Negro has been taught to fear the powers of the spirit world, 
the unseen forces have been held up to him as directing and con- 
trolling all his life, and from the days of the African fetich doctor 
until now the tendency of his religious teaching has been to keep 
alive the feeling of dependence upon the divine powers. His lot 
whether in Africa or in America has never been easy and his daily 
needs have driven him to look to some other source for comfort 
and help. The need of heaven as the place for the righting of all 
wrongs and the enjoyment of all things denied him here has been 



122 The Annals of the American Academy 

ever present, and the church as the medium of attainment for all 
these desires has had a tremendous power over the life of the race. 
Before the Civil War nearly all Negroes were members of the 
white church, and from their place in the rear or in the balcony 
listened to the same preaching as the whites. But with emancipa- 
tion everything was changed rapidly. Separate colored churches 
sprang up everywhere, and the colored members rapidly withdrew 
from the white churches to join those of their own color. 

In organization and administration these colored churches fol- 
lowed closely the forms of the white churches from which they 
sprang and which were their only models. As a rule the Catholics 
and Episcopalians have retained their colored members as regular 
members of the white churches. The Presbyterians, Congregation- 
alists, and Northern Methodists have allowed them to form separate 
churches under control of the whites. The colored Baptists, how- 
ever, and most of the colored Methodists have formed churches 
entirely independent of white control, a fact which largely accounts 
for the larger numbers in these denominations. 

The people as a rule love the freedom of their own institutions, 
and the colored preacher has not cared or has not been able to 
conform to the more strict requirement of a church controlled by 
the whites when the doors of his own independent church are open 
to him without any specific training or ability on his part. There 
are of course in the Methodist and Baptist church many educated 
preachers, and the number is increasing, but there can be no doubt 
that as a rule the better trained men are in the other denominations. 
In the colored Presbyterian or Congregational church today one 
will usually find a well-trained preacher, conducting an orderly serv- 
ice very much after the fashion of the white church, but almost 
invariably with a small congregation. If one would see the typical 
Negro congregation he must go to the Baptist or Methodist church 
perhaps on the same block. Here he will probably find a preacher 
with mediocre ability and training, following the traditional lines 
of preaching, but with a house full of people from all classes of life. 
As a distinct institution, therefore, there can be no doubt that the 
Baptist or Methodist is the typical Negro church. 

At the beginning of the war the total number of colored church 
members was perhaps 700,000, of which the Baptists claimed 350,000 
and the Methodists 270,000, most of whom were still in the white 



Churches and Religious Conditions 123 

churches. Today the colored Baptists have their own local asso- 
ciations, state conventions, and the national convention formed as 
early as 1886. They report for last year 17,000 churches, 12,000 
ministers, and 2,000,000 communicants. The colored Methodists 
have had a similar growth, and today the five separate branches 
report a membership of about 1,500,000. 

This complete separation opens up to the ambitious preacher 
an opportunity not found in the churches under white control. It 
has the advantage of developing initiative on the part of both pastor 
and people and trains them in the habits of self-control as nothing 
else in the reach of the race. But it has also been attended with 
certain definite evils. The freedom from white supervision has at 
times encouraged excesses which are harmful to all. The Negro, 
like most of us, loves the spoils of office, and the titles of the min- 
istry have a peculiar fascination for him. To be called "reverend" 
is the joy of his fife; he will do almost anything to secure the title 
of "D.D.," and if by any means he may become "president" of 
some Baptist body or "elder" or "bishop" in the Methodist church, 
the dream of his life has been realized. In this he differs very 
little from some of his white brethren, but the possibility of secur- 
ing these honors has been a peculiar temptation to him. He has 
often prostituted religion to personal ambition, and the highest 
offices have been too often bestowed upon men of unworthy char- 
acter who were able by political astuteness to control a majority. 
To verify this one has only to have a confidential talk with almost 
any colored preacher following some important church election. The 
evil is a definite one and is to be remedied not by taking from them 
the privilege of conducting their OAvn affairs but by raising the 
standard of character throughout the rank and file of the race. 

The Negro church can hardly be said to have a theolog3^ The 
teachings of the colored pulpit are the traditional doctrines of the 
white church handed down through white teachers and fostered by 
current commentaries available for the colored preacher. The care 
of God for the needy, the substitutionary atonement of Jesus, the 
verbal inspiration of the Bible are the main lines of theological 
thought. These things the average preacher accepts without mak- 
ing any effort to establish their truth or falsity. What the average 
negro wants is not to test the truth of a proposition but to preach 
an "effective" sermon. He is willing enough to accept what others 



124 The Annals of the American Academy 

have said as true so long as he can use it effectively. I have talked 
with many of the best trained preachers of the colored church and 
I have yet to find one who in any way is bothering himself with the 
current problems of theology. One of these men told me that it 
would do no good to keep up with current questions as his people 
were not interested in them and could not profit by their discus- 
sion. What pleases the average congregation is the recital of the 
Bible stories, and the preacher usually conforms to this demand. 

Then too the various questions which divide the white congre- 
gations have very little real meaning for the Negro. He joins the 
Methodist or Baptist church almost indiscriminately as one is nearer 
home, has a better building or a better preacher, or is made up of 
his associates. There is loyalty to one's denomination but it is not 
theological. The average Negro preacher never preaches a strictly 
denominational sermon and cares very little what his people believe 
so long as they become members of his church. All love the spec- 
tacular elements in the communion and the "baptizin," but care 
very little for what lies back of them. Only recently I saw a 
Baptist preacher conducting a Methodist protracted meeting in a 
Methodist church. The Methodist could not come; the Baptist 
was a good preacher; so why not use him? The Methodists saw no 
objection and supported him loyally. 

In church administration the Negro is more original and often 
very effective. His primary problem is one of finances. The preacher 
may not care what his people believe; he may not even care what 
they do: but he must be vitally interested in the finances of the 
church. In this particular direction the Negro has been unusually 
active. New churches are constantly springing up and in most 
places they compare very favorably with the average white church. 
The old rude structures are giving way for the modern frame or 
brick building, nicely painted, furnished with modern pews, often 
with pipe organ and all that goes to make up a well ordered church 
equipment. Quite naturally therefore the problem of the church 
debt has come to be a standing burden for the colored pastor as is 
often the case with his white brother. 

In addition to his church building the Negro is today spending 
quite a sum of money in purely altruistic endeavor. Hospitals and 
rescue homes are increasing; denominational schools receive most 
of their funds from the churches, and almost every colored denomi- 
nation supports one or more foreign missionaries in the West Indies 



Churches and Religious Conditions 125 

and in various parts of Africa. These activities mark out the hues 
along which the church is working and are a distinctly hopeful sign, 
but they entail heavy expense upon a people poorly equipped to 
bear them. When these items are added to the regular church 
expenses and preacher's salary, the financial problem assumes very 
great importance and taxes the ingenuity of the most efficient 
pastor. 

The first thing of course which the pastor must do to meet the 
demand is to get the crowds. To do this he must be able to make 
them "enjoy" the service by preaching sensational sermons. Noth- 
ing else is so effective in bringing the crowds, and in a way this is 
the most important factor in the pastor's work. 

Furthermore he must not be too strict in discipline. Many of 
his best paying members belong to the questionable class and are 
known to be earning money in ways not approved by the teachings 
of the church. These he can not afford to alienate; it would ruin his 
church. And many a preacher has been forced to accommodate his 
teaching and administration to such persons when, if he had been 
free, his work would have borne a different stamp. On the other 
hand there are many according to the statements of some of their 
best men, who deliberately take advantage of this situation to bring 
into their churches a crowd of people who are willing to pay liberally 
to be let alone in their personal lives and who at the same time are 
willing to let the preacher alone in his own shortcomings. Just 
how far this is true no one can tell, but there can be no doubt that 
some of the pastors of the largest churches maintain their places 
because they have around them church officials who support the 
pastor in the toleration of moral laxness on the part of both pastor 
and people. They feel repaid by the fact that, by having a big 
church which contributes liberally, the pastor gets a prominent place 
in the denomination and the glory is reflected back upon his mem- 
bers. Perhaps there are very few pastors who do not feel the pres- 
sure of this condition, but while many are striving nobly against 
it many others seem to welcome it for the sake of their own ambi- 
tions. It is a place where the need of money and the love of power 
have become dominant. 

The next great problem of the colored preacher is to meet the 
religious needs of his people. This would seem to be first, but one 
who has watched the work of the colored church is compelled to 
conclude that the question of finance comes first so far as any defi- 



126 The Annals of the American Academy 

nite plans are followed. But the conscientious preacher finds among 
his people much need for the more personal activity of the minister 
and often his work in this particular is very effective. The Negro 
works all the week under discouraging conditions, reminded on every 
hand of his inferiority, ashamed of his racial history, and suffering 
for many things of which he is innocent. Too often ignorance and 
vice crowd out of his life what little of Hght might otherwise enter. 
So on Sunday the preacher faces his people loiowing that most of 
them need encouragement and a ghmpse of something better than 
they have known through the week. It is not surprising therefore 
that much of the preaching takes this form with the definite purpose 
of enabling the congregation to forget their grievances and, for a 
short while at least, to feel that there is some one who does 
care for them and who does not blame them for being black. This 
Sunday religion of the race is valuable if for no other reason than 
that it encourages and satisfies as nothing else does or can the often 
unexpressed hopes of the race. In the hands of an unscrupulous 
preacher, of course, the gospel of comfort degenerates into a dis- 
gusting effort to "stir up" the people. But on the part of their 
best men it brings to lives accustomed to harshness and injustice 
a glimpse at least of tenderness and love. In so far the Sunday 
preaching of the average Negro church is valuable. But when it 
comes to the actual religious instruction given and the motive power 
for better living it is verj^ difficult to speak encouragingly or accu- 
rately. We so readily generalize concerning the Negro's life and 
know in reahty so little about it. His actual religious life is bound 
up with all his activities and is exceedingly difficult to analyze. 
A few things however are evident. 

Among a large number of older people both white and black 
there is the definite conviction that the present generation of Negroes 
is hopelessly degenerate, as compared with the devout life of the 
slave. One of the most common notes in present day preaching is 
that the younger set of Negroes can not be trusted, and that their 
religion is worthless. It used to be possible, say the older ones, to 
trust a member of the church, but now there is no difference. Church 
members and non-church members are doing the same thing — trying 
to get the advantage of the other fellow. 

Part of this distrust is due to the well-known tendency to 
glorify the good old days of the slave. But part of it is well founded. 



Churches and Religious Conditions 127 

The younger Negro, faced with the sudden readjustment coming 
with emancipation, has not yet been able to find a secure moral or 
religious footing. He is engaged in a long, hard, struggle, in which 
he started with poor equipment. He has been asked to make the 
change from irresponsibility to responsibility, adopt a new standard 
of ethics and make it effective in his life, when his traditions and 
inclinations make that well-nigh impossible. If many of the first 
few generations fail one need not be surprised. We can only hope 
that the condition is temporary and that a new and educated gen- 
eration will find religion and morals more vitally related in every 
day life. 

On the other hand the church itself is largely responsible for 
much of the shortcomings of the younger set. All sorts of pressure 
is brought to bear in getting them into the church, very little test 
of fitness is applied, and the young member comes in feeling that 
if he has been "sorry" for his misdeeds, and will keep up his church 
dues, he is all right. There can be no doubt that church rivalry 
for numbers lies at the basis of much of this laxness, and if the 
younger set come in and remain without shaping their lives to the 
higher standard of religious duty, the blame is certainly not all 
with them. They are surrounded with evidences of laxity in the 
moral conceptions of the others and it is little wonder if they fail. 

Then too there are many things now to detract from the inter- 
est in church life. The secret order bids for a large amount of the 
man's time, new avenues of entertainment are constantly opening, 
and with the growing distrust of the motives of the ministry which 
places such persistent emphasis upon money, tend inevitably to 
weaken the hold of religion upon the life of the race. So that one 
feels disposed to agree that in many cases the judgment is correct — 
the religion of the average young Negro and of many older ones as 
well is of very questionable value. 

Just how conditions may be improved would be exceedingly 
difficult to say. But there is one avenue through which much im- 
provement may be promised. The Negro is dependent largely for 
his advancement upon the example and encouragement of the whites. 
And one of the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of his religious 
development is what he feels to be the constant insincerit}^ of the 
whites. It will do the average Negro very little good to learn that 
the white man has given a thousand dollars to convert the natives 



128 The Annals of the American Academy 

in Africa wliile at the same time he is growing rich by exploiting his 
own colored employes. Strict justice and fairness on the part of 
the white church member will make it easier for the colored man 
to live up to his religious obligations. 

Furthermore if vital Christianity is to prevail in the Negro's 
life he must have a larger part in shaping the policies under which 
he is to labor. After many inquiries I have found almost no instance 
where the colored ministers and leaders have been asked to take 
part in carrying out any program for civic betterment in their city 
or town. Usually the program is mapped out by the white leaders 
and after it has been put through the colored leaders are expected 
to bring their people up to the new requirement. On the other 
hand, some of the most hopeless conditions that I have seen prevail 
where the protests of the conscientious colored men have been con- 
stantly made against the presence of cheap dives in their community 
only to be ignored by the white political machine. It is hardly 
fair for a city government to permit wholesale temptations to be 
placed in the path of the Negro and then blame him if he falls. 
And I doubt whether there is anywhere a more pathetic instance 
of a losing struggle than is afforded by the futile efforts of a Negro 
mother to rear her children under the conditions prevailing in many 
Negro sections of our cities. 

It is useless to criticise the Negro for the failure of his religion 
while the whites are making it impossible for it to be otherwise. 



NEGRO ORGANIZATIONS 

By B. F. Lee, Jr., 
Field Secretary, Armstrong Association of Philadelphia. 

The account of the organized effort for self-help among Negroes 
in this country, since the Civil War, is incomplete without at least 
a brief mention of the ante-bellum organizations which were the 
forerunners of later efforts, many of which have become national 
in scope. When we consider the difficulties that confronted the 
members of the National Negro Convention of 1830, the courage 
of the signers of the petition of 1780 and the desperate bravery that 
marks some of the slave uprisings we are forced to wonder at the 
pathetic failure of some of the attempts at organization among the 
freedmen of America since the Civil War. 

The uprising of the slaves in New York in 1812 was the first of 
the ten slave insurrections recorded by American historians. There 
were eight insurrections among the Southern Negroes, some of which 
were well planned and led by men who were determined to achieve 
freedom at all costs. The names of "Nat" Turner, Denmark Vasey, 
"General Gabriel" and Peter Poyas lend a romance to American 
history that the later champions of freedom have scarcely equaled, 
^he first organized effort among freedmen was probably the 
action of seven men at Dartmouth, Mass., who, on February 10, 
H780, presented to the governor of Massachusetts Bay, a petition 
against the system of taxation without representation as practiced 
against the freedmen of New England. They asked that the benefits 
of the Revolution be extended to all free people regardless of color. 
Many of the later organizations among Negroes have had the same 
object in view, but the daring of the signers of this petition has 
never been surpassed. 

The first national convention among Negroes, was doubtless the 
convention of freedmen which met at Philadelphia, September 15, 
1830. It was the result of an effort on the part of Hezekiah Grice 
of Baltimore, to call together a group of representative free Negroes, 
to consider the various emigration schemes recommended to the 
American black men of that time. The organization adopted the 

129 



s 



130 The Annals of the American Academy 

name of Convention of Colored Men. Among the leading spirits 
were Rt. Rev. Richard Allen, founder and bishop of the A. M. E. 
Church; Rt. Rev. Christopher Rush, one of the founders and first 
bishop of the A. M. E. Zion Connection, and the Rev. W. C. Pen- 
nington, a Presbyterian minister and noted scholar. Following a 
two days' discussion the convention endorsed the Canadian emigra- 
tion plan, at the same time condemning the American Colonization 
Society and its West African effort. The conference adjourned to 
meet the first week in June, 1831. Little is known of the next con- 
ference except that several plans for the betterment of freedmen 
were discussed and that Hezekiah Grice, the founder, was not pres- 
ent. Mr. Grice was at Baltimore engaged in the formation of what 
was probably the first legal rights convention among Negroes in 
the United States. This association proposed to ascertain the legal 
status of the Afro-American freedmen. The white attorneys of that 
day refused to commit themselves on this dangerous question and 
the association, failing in its object, soon passed out of existence. 
There were other conventions following that of 1831; there is 
an account of one held at Syracuse, N. Y., September 15, 1864, over 
which Frederick Douglass presided with the Hon. John M. Langston, 
Wm. H. Day, Jonathan C. Gibbs and Henry Highland Garnett 
among the delegates. Mr. Douglass in an address stated that the 
purpose of the convention was to "promote the freedom, progress, 
elevation and enfranchisement of the entire colored people of the 
nation." It was resolved at this conference to form an equal rights 
committee, whose function was to promote state equal rights leagues 
throughout the country. Several such bodies were formed during 
the latter half of the sixties; the first of these was the state equal 
rights congress of colored people of Pennsylvania, which met at 
Harrisburg, February 8 to 10, 1865. The Harrisburg meeting insti- 
tuted a number of subordinate leagues and brought into the work 
men and women from all parts of the state. The branches soon 
became important factors of the conventions of colored men, whose 
influence extends to the present day. Wm. Nesbit, of Altoona, 
opened the convention at Washington, D. C, January 13, 1869. 
Joseph Bustill, of Philadelphia, presented a protest against the par- 
tial exclusion of colored people from the franchise after the passage 
of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United 
States. A resolution was adopted during the session to petition the 



Negro Organizations 131 

Senate on behalf of the colored people. The establishment of an 
industrial and manual training school for Negroes at New Haven, 
Conn., was also recommended. 

It is worthy of note that the first Negro anti-slavery conven- 
tion was held at Philadelphia, June 4, 1832. The anti-slavery con- 
vention also condemned the West African colonization scheme, 
advised the colored people not to emigrate to Liberia or to Hayti, 
and endorsed the Canadian plan. A striking feature of this con- 
vention is that they recommended the Declaration of Independence 
and the Constitution of the United States to be read at all conven- 
tions: "believing that the truths contained in the former are in- 
controvertible and that the latter guarantees, in letter and spirit, 
to every freeman in this country all the rights and immunities of 
citizenship." 

The period immediately following the Civil War shows very 
little activity among Negroes on an independent basis. The con- 
vention of colored men continued its sessions at irregular periods, 
and several local associations with the same object in view came 
into existence during the latter part of the sixties. The early recon- 
struction days were times of cooperation between the Northern white 
sympathizers and the Negro. The active men and women of the 
darker race gave the greater part of their energy to the more inten- 
sive work of helping their recently liberated brethren in the South. 
Political organization and local problems of adjustment consumed 
their time and under the new spirit of cooperation the national 
questions and the Negroes' grievances were considered with the help 
of white organizations. The independent Negro churches received 
great impetus during this period and new ones sprang into existence, 
Negro secret and benevolent orders came into being, and older ones 
added a large number of local orders in the South. The Colored 
Order of the Knights of Pythias was started in 1864, the Independent 
Order of St. Luke in 1867 and the United Order of Moses in 1868. 
The first Colored Y. M. C. A. was organized in 1866, and the first 
students' association in 1869. Wm. A. Hunton was the first colored 
international secretary. In 1881 the National Women's Christian 
Temperance Union started its work among colored women, Mrs. 
Jane Kenn}^, being the first superintendent. Mrs. Frances E. Harper 
followed her in 1883. 

As a result of an inspiration that occurred to Mr. T. Thomas 



132 The Annals of the Aivierican Academy 

Fortune, the Afro-American Protective League came into existence. 
Its first efforts were put forth in 1887 and within the year many 
local organizations were formed. The objects of the League were 
to protest against taxation without representation, to secure a more 
equitable distribution of school funds, where separate schools were 
maintained, and to fight legal discrimination and lynch law. They 
further proposed to assist in the emigration of Negroes from sections 
rendered intolerable for them through the conduct of the lawless 
whites. They proposed to help create a healthful sentiment between 
the two races and to promote the character and reputation of the 
colored people. At its inception the League was supported with a 
great deal of enthusiasm but the second year of its existence showed 
a discouraging lack of interest. In the national convention of 1890, 
however, 22 states and territories were represented with 141 dele- 
gates seated. The League took up the work of the older con- 
ventions which has continued to the present day passing to the 
Afro-American Council, the Niagara Movement and the National 
Association for the Advancement of Colored People. 

The American Association of Educators of Colored Youth held 

.^ its first meeting in 1889. "Any person in any way connected with 
the training of youth or engaged in the welfare of the race is eligible 
to membership." The subjects for discussion at the amiual meet- 
ings included "Manual Training," "The College-bred Negro," ''Dis- 
franchisement," "The Teacher in Race Development," and "Indus- 
trial Training and Higher Education." Its officers and members 
included most of our noted educators and public spirited men and 
women. The names of Dr. Booker T. Washington, Mrs. Frances 
E. Harper, Dr. W. E. B. DuBois, and Mrs. F. L. Coppin appear 
on its reports. The Association offered the only means for many 
colored teachers to take part in the discussion of their school 
problems. 

The colored press convention held its first great meeting at 

^Washington, D. C, March 5, 1889. There were press conventions 
prior to this, but the deliberations of the body at this convention, 
the speeches, including the address of welcome by the Hon. John 
M. Langston, marks it as the real beginning of the organization. 
The majority of the Negro publications were represented and defi- 
nite plans for the promotion of the Negro press were formulated. 
A statistical committee was formed to tabulate the Negro publica- 



Negro Organizations 133 

tions for permanent reference. The methods of Negro journalists 
were discussed. A remarkable feature was that several members 
owed their eligibility to the fact that they were employed on daily 
papers as correspondents and as reporters. There had been Negro 
press conferences previous to 1889; there have been conventions since 
then, but the convention at Washington was the first to bring for- 
ward practical plans for cooperation and advance among the Negro 
journalists of this country. 

^. The Tuskegee Conference held its first annual meeting at Tuske- 
gee, Ala., in 1890. The organization of the Negro farmers for 
mutual improvement and the study of better methods through these 
conferences has been a great boon, especially to the Southern men 
who lack the contact so necessary for advance in modern agricultural 
methods. As in other of Dr. Washington's efforts the conference 
is one of the most active organizations among colored people. Many 
other institutions for colored people hold conferences each year. 

,The National Association of Physicians, Dentists and Pharma- 
cists of the United States of America was organized in 1895. Since 
that time it has extended its influence throughout the country. 
Papers on technical subjects, social aspects of medicine, the phy- 
sician and the community and other social and ethnic problems are 
read. Colored physicians and laymen attach great importance to 
the deliberations of this body. The good work accomplished through 
its conventions cannot be overestimated. Dr. N. F. Mossell, founder 
of the Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital, Dr. Daniel H. Wil- 
liams, noted physician and surgeon, and Dr. E. C. Bentley, of Chicago, 
111., are among its members. 

The first meeting of the National Federation of Colored JMen 
was^eld at Detroit, Mich., in 1895. This Federation was formed 
for the social, economic and political uplift of the colored people of 
the country. It is practically committed to the Republican party. 
The leading spirits in it are members of the legal profession. Its 
influence has not been so extensive as was at first predicted, though 
many local Leagues are doing effective work, but the alliance of 
these is not a close one. 

It' is diflficult to conceive of a more important organization than 
the^ational Association of Colored Women and its branches. The 
Association was founded in 1896. Some of its functions are the 
establishment of kindergartens, mothers' meetings and sewing classes. 



134 The Annals of the American Academy 

the establishment of a sanatorium, and a general neighborhood wel- 
fare work. It is pledged to combat the "jim crow" laws, lynchings, 
and the convict lease system. About 800 local clubs report to the 
National Association of Colored Women. A list of 200 clubs was 
selected and it was found that the membership of the clubs listed 
was 10,908, that they had collected in two years nearly $82,500, 
that the cost of the property owned by these clubs is nearly S62,000, 
with a present valuation of $113,332.25. Some of the local clubs 
have established reformatories, old folks' homes, day nurseries, work- 
ing girls' clubs and social settlements. Among the studies reported 
by the locals were civics, art, literature, needlework and domestic 
science. 

The American Negro Academy, founded 1895, is an organiza- 
tion perfected by Rev. Alexander Cromwell, of which Dr. DuBois 
is president. Hon. Archibald H. Grimke, Prof. Kelly Miller and 
Rev. Frank Grimke are among its members. The most important 
features of the academy, to the race, are the "Occasional Papers" 
series pubhshed and distributed by it. y 

Closely akin to the Academy is the Ahierican Negro Historical 
Society of Philadelphia, founded in 1897. "The object of this society 
is to collect relics, literature, and historical facts, relative to the 
Negro race, illustrating their progress and development in this coun- 
try. It is the ultimate purpose of this Society to secure title to a 
permanent home for its meetings and a safe deposit for its effects." 
Rev. Henry L. Phillips, Rev. Matthew Anderson and William C. 
Bolivar are among its members. 

The National Business League is a chartered body founded by 
^ Dr. Booker T. Washington. The League is the most virile insti- 
tution of a purely secular nature among Negroes of the present 
generation. Its first meeting was held at Boston in 1890. There 
are 11 state leagues affiliated wath it, 221 chartered local leagues 
located in 32 states of the Union, Jamaica and the British West 
Indies. Including the chartered organizations there are 450 local 
leagues allied with the National body, 4 large national associations, 
the first of which is the National Negro Bankers' Association, which 
was organized in 1906; it represents 64 Negro banks, capitalized at 
$1,600,000 wdth an annual business of $20,000,000. The National 
Association of Funeral Directors was organized in 1907. Its mem- 
bers include men from all parts of the country. The value of their 



Negro Organizations 135 

business cannot be expressed in less than ten figures. Some idea 
of the importance of the^^ational Press Association, organized in 
1909, may be gleaned from the fact that there are 398 periodicals 
pubhshed by Negroes in this country, including 249 newspapers. 
There is also a western Negro Press Association that has done a 
great deal to stimulate the Negro journalist of the Western States. 
The Negro Bar Association, the fom'th affiliated national associa- 
tion, was also organized in 1909 and includes among its members 
some of the foremost legal authorities of the race. The Business 
League, with its locals and four great associations, is the most exten- 
sive organization among Negroes. It represents the commercial, 
business and industrial activities of the race. 

The ^l!Ja;tional League for the Protection of Colored Women, 
organized in 1906, has important local branches in New York, Phila- 
delphia and Norfolk. The objects of the association are the pro- 
tection, industrial advancement and education of colored women. 
Its most extensive work is its free employment bureaus, neighbor- 
hood houses and rescue work. Many cases of preventive work 
among the colored women, through Mrs. Layten, secretary of the 
Philadelphia Association, are known to the writer. It is now one 
of the three affiliated bodies of the National League on Urban 
Conditions among Negroes which was formed by a group of social 
workers and philanthropists of both races who were on the boards 
of the committee on urban conditions among Negroes, the National 
Association for the Protection of Colored Women and the commit- 
tee for improving the industrial condition of Negroes in New York. 
The organization was perfected in 1911, Prof. E. R. A. Seligman 
is chairman and George E. Haynes, Ph.D., director. 

The Negro race conferences have been held regularly since 1907. 
They are devoted to race adjustment and improvement through 
methods of self-help and to securing better opportunity by destroy- 
ing unfair sentiment and laws against the Negro. 

^^ The National Association of Teachers in Colored Schools, organ- 
ized March 5, 1907, is similar to the teachers association organized 
in 1889. It is a stronger organization and bids fair to live long. 

The Colored Graduate Nurses National Association came into 
existence in 1908. Their conventions are devoted to the demon- 
strations of foods, local remedies and sick-room requisites, practical 
demonstrations and papers upon such subjects as "Visiting Nurses 



136 The Annals of the American Academy 

in Public Schools," "Nursing Among Mutes/' and "The Ideal Nurse,'" 
as well as papers by practicing phj^sicians. 

The colored musical and art clubs came together as a national 
association for the first time in 1908. Since then they have held 
regular conventions devoted to the advancement of music and art. 

The National Association for the Advancement of the Negro is 
championed by a large number of white friends of the race. Though 
not strictly a Negro creation, its official organ, the Crisis, "A record 
of the darker races," is edited by Dr. W. E. B. DuBois. The object 
of the Association is the lifting of the Negro through the destruction 
of the barriers of prejudice, the protection of those who suffer from 
unfair or brutal treatment and the extension of all educational facili- 
ties to include the Negro. The Association has many active local 
branches which meet local difficulties, calling in the national body 
when grave problems confront them. It was founded in 1909. 

The National Business League decided at their amiual meeting 
of 1909 to lend their influence towards the celebration of the emanci- 
pation of the American Negroes from slavery. Efforts were made 
to obtain a national appropriation for the celebration, but, failing 
to secure the necessar}^ funds, state celebrations have been arranged, 
and several states have plamied for expositions. The largest will 
probaljly be the fiftieth anniversary of the emancipation from slaver}' 
to l)e held at Philadelphia in September, 1913. 

In November, 1909, a young woman of Woodstown, N. J., Miss 
Abigail Richardson, conceived the idea of calling together the colored 
farmers of that vicinity for the purjDOse of improving their economic 
coiidition through a more extensive method of farming. The move- 
m^ent is known as the Country Farm Association, and has been a 
success from the beginning. They propose to "keep close touch on 
the market and cost of marketing; encourage the purchase of land; 
visit farms operated by colored men, and direct their study and 
method of record-keeping; demonstrate methods of farming on the 
few acres of land at the farmers' disposal; circulate farm bulletins; 
keep the people informed concerning local and national movements 
which affect the farmer closely; conduct corn, potato and tomato 
clubs; and arrange programs for the meetings of the farmers' asso- 
ciation; direct the amiual fair and exhibit and teach fundamental 
prmciples of farming to children." 

In 1910, the Negro National Educational Congress was started 



Negro Organizations 137 

and the ]V>M^nal Independent Political League held its first meet- 
ing in the same year. Besides the independents, the Negroes have 
a Democratic league and a Republican organization of considerable 
strength. Nearly every group of Negro voters has some kind of 
political club, organization or association. 

Besides the institutions mentioned above, the Negroes of the 
United States have a large number of secret orders, some of which 
have attained the dignity of national organizations; for instance, 
The Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias, 
the Order of Elks, and the National Order of Mosaic Templars. 
The great majority of the older secret organizations may be found 
among the colored people. Their importance is probably second 
only to the Negro church activities. The phenomenal growth of 
the Negro beneficial insurance companies is one of the signs of prog- 
ress within the race; these institutions operate all over the country 
and give employinent to thousands of black men and women. The 
Mutual and Provident Beneficial Company of Durham, N. C, the 
National Benefit Company of Washington, D. C, the Keystone Aid 
Society of Philadelphia, Pa., are good examples of Negro insurance 
companies of the best type. Law and order leagues, literary socie- 
ties, Christian and educational congresses, professional and business 
clubs, trade guilds and labor unions, may be found in the Negro 
communities. 

The Negro is well provided with national and state organiza- 
tions for self-help. He has professional and business clubs, charity 
organizations, social settlements and centers, neighborhood clubs, 
benevolent associations and institutions devoted to social functions. 



FIFTY YEARS OF NEGRO PUBLIC HEALTH 

By S. B. Jones, M.D., 
Resident Physician, Agricultural and Mechanical College, Greensboro, X. C. 

At the present time arguments are being brought forward by 
responsible, and sometimes by irresponsible, persons that the Negro 
race in the United States is fast dying out. In proof of this it is 
claimed that the race shows an increasing death rate, a declining 
birth rate, the influence of alcoholic and sexual intemperance, and, 
in particular, a racial predisposition to tuberculosis and pulmonary 
diseases. Now if accurate vital statistics of the whole Negro race 
in the United States for a century or more were procurable, it might 
be possible to determine whether this opinion is founded upon facts 
or not; for vital statistics, furnishing exact information concerning 
the birth rate and the death rate would enable impartial investi- 
gators to predict with tolerable certainty the survival or the extinc- 
tion of this race of people. 

But even this course might fail to give correct information, 
since, satisfactory though the statistical method might be, it should 
be remembered that behind and beyond its facts and deductions 
lies a vast territory, covered over with a maze of social and economic 
problems of vital importance to the Negro race and to the whole 
nation. An enormous infant mortality may conceal the criminal 
negligence of parents, the heartless indifference of municipalities, or 
an economic slavery depriving the infant of its right to be well 
born. Reading between the columns of figures setting forth a large 
death rate from tuberculosis, one may detect the tragedy of human 
tribute paid for the maintenance of city slums and alleys, for ignor- 
ance and poverty, for debauchery or for the ambition of youth that 
overestimates the physical means for its realization. In connection, 
therefore, with the vital statistics of the Negro race these human 
problems must be considered, for a resolute attempt at their solu- 
tion is certain to change the interpretation that is now placed upon 
them. 

No accurate statistics exist by means of which the health of 
slaves fifty or sixty years ago can be estimated. A common belief 

138 



Fifty Years of Negro Public Health 139 

prevails that during the period of slavery the death rate of the 
Negro race was less than that of the white race, its infant mortality 
lower, and its specific death rate from tuberculosis infinitely less. 
With certain limitations it is reasonable to suppose that this may 
have been true. No doubt the first generations, which had been 
suflSciently hardy to survive the dreaded Middle Passage and that 
first period of increased mortality incident to the acclimatization of 
a tropical people in colder regions, under the stimulus given to the 
production of a marketable product — human flesh — excelled the white 
race in fecundity. A life in the open air, cabms with wide fireplaces 
allowing for thorough ventilation, the nursing of children by their 
own mothers tending largely to a low infant mortality, a religious 
exaltation and unfaltering optimism — all these were causes which, 
in the absence of definite statistics to the contrary, might go far to 
justify the conclusion of Hoffman that "the higher rate of increase 
of- the colored population during the period preceding the war would 
indicate that during slavery the mortahty was not so high, at least 
not in the United States, as it has been since emancipation." 

In the light of modern knowledge the comparative absence of 
tuberculosis among the Negroes can be easily explained. The masses 
of Negroes did not come into contact with their white masters in 
their houses, and were consequently not exposed to the germs of 
that disease which is preeminently a house disease. The only por- 
tion of the slave population which might acquire the disease was 
the house servants, who were in constant association with them, 
and whose children might carry the malady in a latent form which 
would terminate as they grew older into the severer type or undergo 
a natural cure. For economic reasons such persons of the slave 
population as contracted tuberculosis were forced to work, and this 
brought about speedy death or happily resulted in a process of 
healing. 

The following statistics in regard to health conditions among 
Negroes during that time are interesting and instructive: In the 
war period, 1861-1865, there were examined 315,620 white recruits 
and 25,828 colored for enlistment in the army. The number of 
rejections of white recruits exceeded that of colored in all forms of 
diseases, the figures being 264 as against 170 per thousand. In the 
case of consumption the rejections of white recruits exceeded those of 
colored recruits, the figures being 11 in the white to 4 per thousand in 



140 The Annals of the American Academy 

the colored. But the rejections of colored in the case of syphilis ex- 
ceeded that of the white, the figures being 7 to 3 per thousand; and 
in scrofula 3 to 2 per thousand. Dr. Buckner, quoted by Hoffman, 
states that of the 1,600 Negroes examined by him, "very few were 
rejected, not perhaps more than 10 per cent. Tuberculosis is very 
rare among them." 

Right here a few deductions may be made. The excess of 
scrofula is highl}^ significant, for the modern physician knows that 
it is simply a mild form of tuberculosis affecting the lymphatic 
glands. It is the forerunner of the more serious forms of the great 
white plague. The white race had reached the point where it was 
to acquire a comparative immunity from tuberculosis; the black race 
must now in its turn pay the price which all civilized nations and 
races had paid for progress and the varied activities of city life. 
With the tuberculization of the black race its mortality rate will 
increase until it also reaches at a later day a comparative immunity. 

With the close of the war a new era began. The white race 
resolutely faced reconstruction with the usual courage and energy 
of Anglo-Saxons determined to win a victory from every defeat. 
Four circumstances were in its favor: it had advanced far enough 
to acquire a partial immunity against tuberculosis; the menace of 
syphilis was growing less; its death rate was decreasing; its birth 
rate was rising. For the Negro race it was a time of storm and 
stress, of unsettled political tendencies, of chimerical ambitions and 
social unrest. Economic distress by lowering its vital resistance 
made it an easy prey for the inroads of disease, which increased con- 
tinually because of ignorance and of poverty, of ill-advised schemes 
of emigration and of overcrowding in large cities. A high infant 
mortality was the result. The fecundity of the race was diminished 
while that of the white race increased. Rickets became the char- 
acteristic infantile disease of the race; pulmonary tuberculosis of its 
youth. It was the period of scanty hospital facilities and inade- 
quate medical attention. To the physical discomforts of disease was 
superadded a nervous tension as the race, with varying success, 
strove to adjust itself to the larger life of individual and racial freedom. 

Such were the conditions which, for about the space of twenty- 
five years after emancipation, confronted the American Negro. The 
succeeding twenty-five years is the period of vital education or, in 
other words, of practical education directed towards the things of 



Fifty Years of Negro Public Health 141 

life and marked by the founding of industrial schools throughout 
the South which accomplished incalculable good in the direction of 
public and private hygiene. By their insistence on the common 
things of life like tooth brushes, bed linen free from vermin, water 
and soap, suitable hours of rest and work, advice of competent medi- 
cal authority in times of illness, they undoubtedly decreased the 
death rate among the youth of the race directly and indirectly 
affecting the death rate at large. By their community work they 
improved the conditions of the people about them. Under their 
influence good homes were built; family relationships became more 
stable; while concubinage and promiscuity, though still existing, were 
placed under the ban of the moral law. As a modus vivendi out of 
the political situation was found, the apprehensions of the Negro 
became less, and he vigorously directed his attention towards secur- 
ing his share in the improved economic prosperity of the South. 
Under these circumstances the mortahty rate is expected to decline, 
and it does decline. It decreases from 30 per thousand in 1900 to 
24 per thousand in 1910. At the same time the population increases 
11.3 per cent without the help of immigration, an increase which 
Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones, of the bureau of the census, describes as 
a rate "equal to that of representative European countries." And 
when it is remembered that the bureau of the census estimates that 
the death rate in the country districts is about two-thirds of that 
in the cities of the registration area, the conclusion of Hoffman, for 
the present at least, cannot be true that "the mortahty rate of the 
race is on the increase." 

It was the period also in which more distinctive agencies for 
the reduction of Negro mortality appeared: colored medical schools 
and hospitals and nurse training schools were established; Howard, 
Meharry, Leonard and Flint sent out their graduates to reduce the 
death rate. These men and women were teachers of hygiene as 
well as practitioners of medicine. At times they had to perform the 
duties of nurse as well as physician. Regarded with suspicion in 
the earlier days, they steadily overcame the prejudice of their own 
race, in many cases being given the helping hand by Southern white 
physicians, and so were enabled to perform a mission which no 
other than Negroes could satisfactorily perform. The late president 
of the Virginia state board of medical examiners once said to one 
of these men: "It is the colored physician who can best serve the 



142 The Annals of the American Academy 

colored people. We can help, but not as much as the colored phy- 
sician." The 909 physicians in 1890 increased to 1734 in 1900 and 
now probably number over 3600. Equally active in the reduction 
of the mortality rate has been the trained colored nurse. Not only 
to her own race has she been of service, but also to the white race. 
Freedman's training school for nurses established in 1862 has been 
followed by the founding of more than 65 hospital and nurse train- 
ing schools in thirteen Southern, four Western and three Northern 
states. In Birmingham, Ala., in Chicago, III, in Norfolk, Va., in 
Wilmington, N. C, visiting nurses are assisting in the reduction of 
the mortality rate by attending the sick, by advising those who 
are well as to the methods of preventive medicine, and in a few 
instances conducting classes in home nursing for the older girls in 
the public schools. 

Within the last five years attention has been directed specifically 
towards the reduction of the high death rate. Negro physicians 
and teachers, some enlightened pastors, graduates of literary and 
industrial schools, are all united in the determined efforts they are 
making to reduce the Negro death rate, especially the death rate 
from tuberculosis. Splendid assistance and generous cooperation 
have been extended by white physicians and public health officers 
who, by lectures to schools and churches are emphasizing, as never 
before in the history of the nation, the importance of public health 
to the Negro. 

At first this progressive movement took shape as anti-tubercu- 
losis leagues, formed mainly through the efforts of Dr. Wertenbaker 
of the Marine Hospital Service in several of the Southern States; 
but its scope is being enlarged to include health clubs in which are 
discussed problems relating to disease, sanitation, insurance and pub- 
lic health. Admirable work in this direction is being done by the 
annual conferences at Atlanta University, Hampton and Tuskegee 
Institutes. The Agricultural and Mechanical College of Greensboro, 
N. C, has a model health club and gives advice to all students who 
are anxious to establish similar clubs in their communities. As a 
whole the school superintendents are active leaders in this move- 
ment ; and the time is fast approaching, if it has not already arrived, 
when health talks in the public schools by teachers or physicians 
will be held to be as important as the lesson in arithmetic, the 
caning of chairs or the making of bread. 



Fifty Years of Negro Public Health 143 

In spite of this favorable outlook there still remain several 
important problems claiming attention. Undoubtedly tuberculosis 
is the greatest of these. Viewed at a long range it is not as serious 
as may be thought, being reducible to the general formula of prob- 
lems which races must encounter in their upward advance towards 
civilization, a process which usually involves a large death rate. 
The immunization which civilized races have obtained through this 
process has not yet been carried sufficiently far to protect the Negro ; 
but there are signs of improvement even in this direction, for the 
death rate per hundred thousand in the registration area in 1890 
was 546; in 1900 it was 485; while in 1910 it fell still lower to 405. 
Though primarily a problem of public health, it is also one of soci- 
ology, since the restriction of the Negro to certain areas in cities 
where housing conditions are bad, the limited choice of occupations 
and intemperate habits, all tend to increase the death rate from 
tuberculosis. But notwithstanding these discouraging features it 
seems probable that the tuberculization of the Negro has already 
reached its maximum and with the application of the remedies of 
various social agencies a decline in the mortality rate from this 
disease may now be confidently expected. 

The problem of infant mortality is also a grave one. For im- 
provement in this respect one must look to the forces of education 
which are at work for the establishment of permanent family life, 
for knowledge of the laws of hygiene, for public health officers who 
will insist on improvement of sanitary conditions in Negro sections 
of large cities. 

The problem of hookworm infection has proved to be a negligi- 
ble one. Dr. Wyckliffe Rose, administrative secretary of the Rocke- 
feller Sanitary Commission, states that "all statistics thus far go to 
show that the infection is much lighter among the colored popula- 
tion than among the white. There seems to be some degree of 
racial immunity. The men report excellent cooperation on the part 
of the colored people. They have examined the students in many 
colored schools and have examined and treated many colored people 
at the dispensaries." However, the commission appointed by the 
National Medical Association of Negro Physicians to investigate the 
prevalence of this disease among the colored people insisted that 
while it is true that the large part attributed to the race in the 



144 The Annals of the American Academy 

spread of the disease was incorrect, the special problem was a part 
of the larger one of sanitation and preventive medicine. 

The problem of venereal diseases is extremely important, nor 
is it one which may be lightly disregarded. It has provoked much 
discussion among Negroes and members of the other race. "The 
Negro and His Health Problems," Ijy Dr. J. Madison Taylor {Medi- 
cal Record, September 21, 1912) and "Venereal Diseases in the Negro, 
with Special Reference to Gonorrhea," by Dr. John C. Rush (Medical 
Record, Maj'' 31, 1913) are articles which would have been more 
valuable to the scientific student had the comparative method been 
employed, and the problems of the Negro considered as part of the 
general jjroblems of the human race and subject to the same laws 
of social development. Interesting discussions might arise out of 
the two articles, but this is not the time nor the place for such. The 
curious reader, confining himself strictly to the question of venereal 
diseases among Negroes, might compare with these Dr. Wolbarst's 
article in the Medical Record of October 29, 1910, from which it will 
appear that these are particularly human, and not racial, problems 
with which the Avhole nation is called upon to deal. 

That the danger is not underestimated even by Negroes is 
apparent from the statement that "there is among Negroes a con- 
stant excess of venereal disease among unsuccessful applicants" for 
the United States Army. Coming from such a responsible source 
as the volume on Health and Physique of the Negro American (No. 
11, Atlanta University Publications, p. 68), this statement deserves 
serious consideration. From the medical point of view its preva- 
lence among enlisted men points to the syphilization of the race as 
one of the prices it must pay for entering upon the heritage of civili- 
zation; from the sociological it is an omen of grave import to the 
race and the nation at large. The remed}^ lies in such measures 
as are being taken to combat these diseases among the white race: 
instruction in sexual matters to the youth, as advocated by the 
American Federation of Sex Hygiene; an awakened public conscience; 
and a pride of race which holds of paramount importance the phys- 
ical interests of the generations that are yet unborn. Fortunately 
there are already signs of progress. In several of the Southern 
colored colleges regular and systematic lectures are given by the 
college physicians on this vital subject, and the students are shown 
the perils of extra-conjugal sexual relations. The remedy proposed 



Fifty Years of Negro Public Health 145 

by Dr. John Rush of Mobile, Ala., is the one that will commend 
itself to thinking Negro educators and physicians. He says: 

Do away with so many creed teachers and give them teachers on sexual 
psychology and hygiene, beginning from the time they are twelve years old. 
and taught until their education is finished. It is a great pity that some of 
the large-hearted philanthropists who bequeath fortunes for the education of 
the Negro do not specify that about one-half of the amount donated be used 
in establishing such courses of study. Not only should these branches be 
taught in Negro schools and colleges, but in the institutions of learning for 
our own young people. This has been the fault in our white schools and col- 
leges, not only in the South, but all over the United States. They have failed 
to teach young men how to live, and by this I mean they have allowed them 
to go on ignorant of the sexual side of life except as it could be learned from 
a fellow-student's personal experience. 

To sum up : In the course of the past fifty years the Negro race 
has had to contend against the hostile forces of ignorance, poverty 
and prejudice while adjusting itself to the new conditions imposed 
by the life of freedom, and consequently its mortality rate has been 
excessively high, due largely to pulmonary tuberculosis and infant 
diseases; but now a marked improvement is apparent, and its mor- 
tality rate is declining with that of the general population. With 
this conclusion the recent report of the United States bureau of the 
census agrees. In Bulletin 112, Mortality Statistics 1911, the follow- 
ing gratifying statement of the progress made in this direction occurs: 

The differences between the death rates of the native white population 
of native and foreign parentage and the foreign born white population should 
not be interpreted as essential racial differences, but rather as due to eco- 
nomic and other social causes. The same reasons may explain the high death 
rate of the colored or Negro population as compared with the white popula- 
tion. The death rate of the colored population of the registration area as a 
whole in 1911 (23.7 per 1,000), although much higher than that of the white 
population (13.7) is lower than the rates of the great majority of European 
countries up to the last quarter of the nineteenth century and could undoubt- 
edly be reduced to a figure which would more closely -approximate, if not 
equal, the death rate of the white population. 

Various agencies are at work in promoting better conditions of 
public health: there are the literary and industrial schools, skilful 
Negro physicians, trained nurses and devoted teachers, interested 
state boards of health, and an enlightened public sentiment. 

It is true that great problems still remain, such as those of 



146 The Annals of the American Academy 

tuberculosis, an excessive infant mortality and venereal diseases, yet 
just as the nations of Europe survived these dread scourges with 
far less knowledge of sanitation among their wisest scientists than 
is possessed by many a Negro school boy or girl today, so the chances 
of the survival of the race seem exceptionally hopeful. 

As economic prosperity increases, a decline in the city birth 
rate is to be expected, as is the case with the most progressive and 
civilized nations of the world; but no evil results are to be appre- 
hended from this in view of the present declining death rate and a 
rural population actively settling the farm lands of the South, and, 
as is customary with such a population, steadily increasing in fecun- 
dity. 

"Who fears to face another fifty years with all these forces at 
work for the permanence of the race? Only the pessimist doubtful 
of the value of education. Under that banner the best for the Negro 
race has been accomplished while the battle cry changed from books 
to tools, from classrooms to workshops, from the theoretical to the 
practical. Now another battle cry is sounding louder and more 
insistent: it is the battle cry of physiological teaching directed towards 
the prolongation of life and the diminution of human suffering, for 
without sound health the finest classical education and the most 
useful industrial training avail nothing. The battle is being fought 
with united armies on a territory where all may operate — ^the field 
of public health. The need of the hour, so far as Negroes are con- 
cerned, is for systematic and organized effort directed towards the 
problems of sanitation and public health in all colored schools and 
colleges, in all churches and communities, in fraternal societies and 
in private families. It is not too much to expect victory for a race, 
which, in fifty years, has reduced its illiteracy from an estimated 
percentage of 95 to one of 33.3 as given by the census figures of 1910. 
Let the teaching of general elementary physiology-, including sex 
physiology, and sanitation be placed on a rational basis in all colored 
schools and colleges, in the hands of men and women thoroughly 
trained and with full knowledge of the health problems named above, 
and there can be little doubt that the issue of the conflict will be 
such a rapidly declining death rate and reduced morbidity as will 
astonish the civilized world. 



NEGRO HOME LIFE AND STANDARDS OF LIVING 

By Robert E. Park, 

Wollaston, Mass. 

Before the Civil War there were, generally speaking, two classes 
of Negroes in the United States, namely free Negroes and slaves. 
After the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, the plantation 
Negroes remained, for the most part, upon the soil and formed a 
class of peasant farmers. This class, which represented 80 per cent 
of the race, constituted the base of the social structure, so far as 
such a thing may be said to have existed at that time, among the 
members of the race. Above this there was a small class composed 
in part of free Negroes, in part of a class of favored slaves, all those 
in fact whom education, opportunity or natural ability had given 
material advantages and a superior social position. It was this 
class which took the leadership directly after the war. 

In recent years the number of occupations in which Negroes 
are engaged has multiplied and the area of the Negro's activities, 
except perhaps in the realm of politics, has greatly extended. The 
descendants of the free Negroes and of those slaves who started 
with superior advantages directly after the war have gone very 
largely into the professions. They are lawyers, physicians, teachers, 
musicians, playwrights and actors. One of the highest paid per- 
formers on the vaudeville stage today is a colored man. Several 
of the most successful composers of popular songs are colored. Others 
are engaged in various kinds of social service. They are missionaries 
to Africa, secretaries of Young Men's Christian Associations, social 
settlement workers, and so forth. In almost every instance it will 
be found that the men and women who have gained distinction in 
any of the professions mentioned were the descendants either of 
free Negroes or of a class which I have called favored slaves. 

In the meantime there has grown up in recent years a vigorous 
and pushing middle class, composed of small contractors, business 
men of various sorts, bankers, real estate and insurance men. The 
two largest fortunes left by Negroes of which we have any record 
were made in real estate speculations. Thomy Lafon, who died at 

147 



J 48 The Annals of the American Academy 

his house in New Orleans in 1892, left a fortune which was appraised 
at $413,000 and Colonel John Mackey, who died in Philadelphia in 
1902, left property which was valued at $432,000 and was probably 
worth very much more, since a large part of it was coal and min- 
eral land in Kentuck3\ 

At the same time, from among the peasant farmers, there has 
grown a small class of plantation owners. These men farm but a 
small portion of the land they own, and rent the remaining to ten- 
ants, to whom they stand in the position of capitalists. Usually 
they will run a small store from which they make advances to their 
tenants. Although there were, among the free Negroes of the South 
before the War, a certain number who owned large plantations, and 
some who owned slaves, the Negro plantation owners in the South 
today have been recruited almost wholly from the ranks of the 
plantation Negroes. They represent, in other words, men who have 
come up. 

The growth of a Negro middle class, composed of merchants, 
plantation owners and small capitalists, has served to fill the dis- 
tance which formerly existed between the masses of the race at the 
bottom and the small class of educated Negroes at the top, and in 
this way has contributed to the general diffusion of culture, as well 
as to the solidarity of the race. 

Although the distinction between the upper and lower strata 
of Negro social life is not so clearly marked now as formerly, the 
descendants of the different types of antebellum Negroes have pre- 
served, to a very large extent, the traditions, sentiments and habits 
of their ancestors, and it will contribute something to understanding 
the social standards, the degree of culture and comfort which the 
Negro peasant, the Negro artisan, business and professional mau 
enjoy today to take some account of those earlier, ante-bellum con- 
ditions out of which they sprang. 

The great majority of the slaves were employed in only the 
crudest forms of unskilled labor. They were field hands, working 
under the direction of an overseer and reckoned, along with the 
stock and tools, as part of the equipment of the plantation. Under 
these circumstances the amount of general culture and knowledge 
of the world which they obtained depended upon the extent and 
character of their contact with the white man and with the outside 
world. I'his differed greatly in various parts of the country. There 



Negro Home Life and Standards of Living 149 

was perhaps, no part of the South where the plantation Negro grew 
up on such easy and famiHar terms with his master as in south- 
western Virginia. Here the farms were small; the crops were varied; 
servant and master worked side by side in the field and lived upon 
an equality rarely if ever seen in the states farther South. The 
effects of these ante-bellum conditions may be clearly seen today. 
There is no part of the South, perhaps no part of the United States 
where the small Negro farmers are more independent and prosper- 
ous, or where the two races get on better together, than, for example, 
in the region around Christianburg, Va. 

The homes of the Negro farmers in this region would be regarded 
as comfortable for a small farmer in any part of the country. They 
are frequently two-story frame buildings, surrounded by a garden 
and numerous out-buildings. The interior of these homes is neat 
and well kept. They contain a few books, some pictures and the 
usual assortment of women's handiwork. A general air of comfort 
and contentment pervades the homes and the community. Nearby 
there is a little six months country school. You learn, also, that 
one or two of the children have completed the course in the public 
school and have been sent away to a neighboring academy to com- 
plete their course. 

The contrast between one of the homes in this joart of Virginia 
and a similar home in a region like the sea islands, off the coast of 
South Carolina is striking, particularly if you have come, as was 
true in my case, almost directly from one to the other. In the 
sea islands the slaves were more isolated than in almost any other 
part of the South. The result is apparent in the condition and lives 
of the Negro people today. Outside of the towns they live, for the 
most part, on little farms of ten and twenty acres which were sold 
to them by the federal govermnent directly after the war. These 
homes are quaint little nests, often curiously improvised to meet 
the individual necessities of the household. The people are on the 
whole densely ignorant, but possess a shrewd and homely wit that 
makes conversation with them an interesting exercise. Among them- 
selves they speak a dialect that is scarcely intelligible to an out- 
sider and they have many quaint and curious customs, some of 
which may have their source in Africa. Among other things peculiar 
to the people of these islands are there "prayer houses." These 
prayer houses are a local institution older and different from the 



150 The Annals of the American Academy 

churches, which were mtroduced after the Civil War. Connected 
with these prayer houses, also, there are religious forms and exer- 
cises, older and cruder than those practised in the churches. What 
is recognized elsewhere as a weakness of the Negro race, and perhaps 
of all isolated and primitive peoples, namely a disposition to cherish 
personal emnities, and to split and splinter into factitious little groups, 
finds abundant illustration here. There are probably more little 
churches, more little societies, and, if I can judge, more time and 
energy wasted in religious excitements and factional disputes among 
the people of the sea islands than in any similar group of colored 
people anywhere in the South. As is, perhaps, to be expected, 
where so much time and energy are expended in litigious and cere- 
monial excitements there is not much left for the ordinary business 
of daily life. In spite of this fact I am disposed to believe that the 
home life of the sea island people is more comfortable and quite as 
wholesome as that of the peasants in many parts of southern Europe 
which I have visited. 

It was notorious, even in slavery times, that the up-country 
Negroes were superior to the coast Negroes, and this seems to be 
true today, even of those remote parts of the black belt where the 
Negroes are still living very much as they did in slavery times. I 
visited not long ago, one of these isolated little communities, situated 
on the rich bottom lands along the upper reaches of the Alabama 
River. The settlement consisted of, perhaps, a hundred families, 
who are employed during the year on one or two of the plantations 
in the neighborhood. Ordinarily, on the old fashioned plantations 
such as these, the tenants would hve in the "quarters," as they 
did in slavery days, or in little huts scattered about on the land 
they tilled. In this case, however, owing to the fact that the culti- 
vated land was so frequently inundated by spring floods, the ten- 
ants of each plantation were located on a little stretch of sandy soil 
which the spring flood never reached, although it often covered all 
the surrounding country. This stretch of sand is dotted, at con- 
venient distances, with giant live oak trees, which afford a welcome 
shade and give the effect of a natural park. On this little sandy 
oasis are scattered at irregular intervals the homes of the people 
of the settlement. They are, for the most part, little rude huts 
with two or three rooms and a few outbuildings. Sometimes there 
are fruit trees in the garden in front of the houses, with a barn. 



Negro Home Life and Standards of Living 151 

pig stys, hen yards, in the rear and on the other sides, the number 
of these buildings depending upon the thrift of the farmer. 

Most of the people who live here have grown up in the settle- 
ment or have married into it. At one of the neatest of these little 
cottages I met a little \Aathered old man, who proved to be the 
patriarch of the community. His memory went back, I found, to 
the time when this region was a wilderness. He knew the history 
of every family in the settlement. A large portion of them were, 
in fact, his children and grandchildren and he told me, in response 
to my questions, the whole story of the pioneers in this region and 
of the manner in which the land was cleared and settled. He him- 
self had never been away from the plantation except for a few months 
during the war, when he ran away to Mobile. The little house in 
which he lived was the typical two-room cabin, with a wide open 
hallway, or rather porch, between the two sections of the house. 
The interior was rather bare, but everything about the house was 
clean and neat. A vine grew over the porch, a gourd hung from the 
beams, and a few trees were in blossom in front of the house. 

The other houses in the community are much like this one, 
some of them even smaller. One of the more enterprising citizens, 
however, who was, as I remember, the only land owner, has erected 
a new four-room house. In this house there was a rug on the floor, 
a few pictures, most of them family portraits, some books, generally 
what are known as "race books," which contain uplifting accounts 
of the progress of the race. Besides these, there were several copies 
of a weekly farm paper, a few government agricultural bulletins 
and a large framed lithograph portrait of Booker T. Washington. 
Another thing which distinguished this house from the others was 
the possession of a screen door, a further evidence that the owner 
of the house was an exceptional person in this community. 

The principal diet here, as elsewhere among the Negro farmers 
in the South, consists of fat pork, corn bread with syrup, and greens. 
In addition to this, there are on occasions eggs and chicken and per- 
haps tea and coffee. A really thrifty housewife, however, knows 
how to brew tea from herbs gathered in the woods, and at certain 
seasons of the year there are fish and game in abundance. 

The budget of an average Negro tenant farmer as accurately 
as I was able to obtain it, worked out about as follows: 



152 The Annals of the American Academy 

Rent, two bales of cotton and seed $150.00 

Clothing for a family of six 76 . 75 

Groceries 125.00 

Physician and medicines 9.00 

"Christmas money" 15.00 

Church and school 5.00 

Average cost of fertilizer and farm equipment, feed for mulC; 

etc 162.75 

Total expense 543.50 

Cash 56.50 

Total $600.00 

There is always room for a wide margin in these accounts. In 
a bad season or when cotton is cheap the vahie of the tenant's por- 
tion of the crop may fall far below the estimated income of $600. 
With a good season it will amount to considerable more. 

The average tenant farmer will spend as much money during 
the cropping season as the grocer or the banker who is advancing 
him will permit. An actual month's rations for a farmer of this 
class is as follows: 

Chops, four bushels \ _, 11,1,1 ,.« ,-^ 

^ ^ ' , , , > For mule and other stock $7.50 

Oats, five bushels J 

Flour, 50 pounds •. 1 . 95 

Meal, one bushel 1.00 

Meat 1.50 

Lard 50 

Sugar 60 

Groceries .95 

Total $14 .^0 

To this must be added S4 in cash which will make the total 
cash of the monthly ration for a family of six, $18. This ration 
will of course be supplemented by the products of the garden and of 
the farm. A thrifty farmer, however, can reduce the amount of 
his purchases at the store to almost nothing. He can raise his own 
cane and make his own syrup; he can raise his own fodder, and 
supply himself with pork and corn meal from his own farm. This 
is what he usually does as soon as he sets out to buy a farm of his 
own. 

There has been great improvement in recent years in the living 
condition of the Negro farmers in most parts of what is known as 
the Black Belt. This is particularly true of those sections of the 



Negro Home Life and Standards of Living 153 

country where the Negroes have begun to buy land or where they 
have come in contact, through schools or through agents of the 
farm demonstration movement, with the influences that are chang- 
ing and improving the method and technique of farming throughout 
the South. 

Wherever one meets a little colony of Negro land owners and 
wherever one meets a Negro who has risen to the position of farm 
manager, one invariably finds improvement in the character and 
condition of the Negro home. Whenever a good school is estab- 
lished it is usually the center of a group of thrifty Negro farmers. 
Not infrequently a Negro farmer, who has acquired a little land or 
a little money, will sell his property and move to another state or 
another county in order to obtain good country school accommo- 
dations for his children. Macon County, Alabama, for example, in 
which the Tuskegee Institute is located is said to have more Negro 
landowners than any other county in the South, and very many of 
these have come into the county during the past five or six years 
since an effort was made by the Tuskegee Institute to build up 
and improve the country schools in that county. A large propor- 
tion of colored farmers in Macon County live at present in neat 
four- and five-room cottages. The standard of living has been appre- 
ciably raised in this and neighboring counties. 

Census statistics show that the number of Negro landowners 
is increasing throughout the South about 50 per cent more rapidly 
than the white. Ownership of land invarial^ly brings with it an 
improvement in the stability and the comfort of the home. The 
number of large landowners and farm managers is likewise increas- 
ing. Recently I visited the house of a Negro "renter" in Georgia. 
He was, in fact, not the ordinary tenant farmer but rather a farm 
manager. He himself farmed but a small portion of the land he 
rented, subletting it to tenants over whom he exercised a careful 
supervision. He was a man w^ho had never been to school, but 
he had taught himself to read. He was living in a large comfortable 
house, formerly occupied by the owner of the plantation. This 
man was not only a good farmer but, in his way, he was something 
of a student. Among his books I noticed several that had to do 
with the local history of the country during slavery times, which 
showed that he had an amount of intellectual curiosity that is rare 
in men of his class. This was further shown by his eagerness to 



154 The Annals of the American Academy 

talk about matters of which he had read in the newspapers in regard 
to which he wanted more information. He had, as I remember, 
about $5,000 in the banlc and was looking forward to purchasing 
very soon the plantation upon which he was living. 

I have frequently met Negro farmers, old men who had come up 
from slavery, who owned and conducted large plantations, although 
they could neither read nor write. One man in Texas, who owned 
1,800 acres of land told me that, until recent years, he had carried 
all his accounts with his tenants in his head. Finding however, 
that, as he grew older, he was losing his ability to remember he 
had hired a school teacher to keep his accounts for him. Sometimes 
these men who have struggled from the position of peasant to that 
of a planter live in much the same way as their tenants. But the 
next generation is usually educated and learns to spend, even if it 
has not learned to make. 

In the North, as might be expected, Negroes farm better and 
live better than they do in the South. One of the most successful 
farmers in the state of Kansas is Junius G. Groves of Edwardsville, 
Kans. Groves was born as slave in Green County, Ky. He went 
over to Kansas with the exodus in 1879. He started in 1882 to 
raise potatoes on a rented farm of 6 acres. He now owns 503 acres 
in the Kaw Valley upon which he raised last year a crop of 55,000 
bushels of potatoes. With the aid of his sons, who were educated 
in the Kansas Agricultural College, Groves has applied scientific 
methods to his farming operations. By this means he has been 
able to raise his maximum yield on a single acre to 395 bushels. He 
has recently erected a handsome modern house which a writer in 
The Country Gentleman describes as "a twenty-two room palace 
overlooking a 503 acre farm." A farmer Uke Groves, however, 
belongs to what I have described as the middle class, composed of 
men who operate on a relatively large scale and with their own 
capital. 

Although the great majority of the slaves were employed at work 
in the fields there were, on every large plantation in the South before 
the Civil War those who were employed as carpenters, stonemasons, 
and blacksmiths. In all the larger cities, also, there were a certain 
number of Negro mechanics who hired their own time and were 
given a good many of the privileges of the free Negroes. Negro 
slaves were also employed as sailors, as locom.otive firemen, as well 



Negro Home Life and Standards of Living 155 

as in other positions requiring skill and a certain amount of responsi- 
bility. Slaves of this class were better treated than the ordinary 
field hand. They were better housed, better clothed and better fed, 
and, with the exception of the house servants, were allowed more 
privileges than the other people on the plantation. At the close 
of the War, therefore, there were a considerable number of trained 
workmen among the former slaves. Of all the people who came 
out of slavery these were, perhaps, as a class, the most competent 
self-respecting, and best fitted for freedom. 

In spite of this fact Negroes have probably made less advance 
in the skilled trades than in other occupations. The reason is not 
far to seek. AVith the growth of cities and manufacturing indus- 
tries since emancipation, great changes have taken place in the 
character and condition of skilled labor in the South. The cities 
have drawn more heavily upon the white than the colored portion 
of the populations and, whenever there has been a change or reor- 
ganization in an industry, the poor white man has profitted by it 
more than the Negro. The cotton mills, the majority of which have 
been built since the war, employ almost exclusively white labor 
and it is only recently that Negroes have anywhere been employed 
as operatives in any of the spinning industries. In certain occupa- 
tions, like that of barber and waiter, the Negro has been very largely 
crowded out by foreign competition. 

Labor unions have almost invariably sought to keep Negroes 
out of the skilled trades. In those occupations, however, in which 
the Negro has shown his ability to compete and has managed to 
gain a sufficient foothold to compel recognition, as for example in 
the coal and iron industries, the timber and turpentine industries 
and, to a less extent, in the building trades, labor unions have made 
earnest effort to bring Negroes into the unions and have thus insured 
for them the same wages and ultimately the same standards of 
living as prevail among white artisans of the same class. 

As a rule the Negro has made less progress in occupations in 
which he formerly had a monopoly, like that of barbering and wait- 
ing, than in new occupations into which he has entered since eman- 
cipation. Wherever Negroes have had to win their way by compe- 
tition with the white man they are, as a rule, not only more efficient 
laborers, but they have invariably adopted the white man's standards 
of living. 



156 The Annals of the American Academy 

There are, particularly in every large city as well as in every 
small town in the South, multitudes of Negroes who live meanly 
and miserably. They make their homes in some neglected or aban- 
doned quarters of the city and maintain a slovenly, irregular and 
unhealthy sort of existence, performing odd jobs of one kind or 
another. Very few colored people of the artisan class, however, live 
in these so-called "Negro quarters." There are always other quar- 
ters of the city, frequently in the neighborhood of some Negro school, 
where there will be another sort of community and in this com- 
munity a large proportion of the people will be composed of Negro 
artisans and small tradesmen. They will live, for the most part, 
in little three- or four-room houses and, if they happen to own their 
homes, there will be a vine training over the porch, curtains in the 
^vindows, a rug or carpet on the floor. The children who go to 
school will be neatly and tidily dressed. There will be a few books 
in the front bedroom, a little garden in the rear of the house and a 
general air of thrift and comfort about the place. 

In the course of time, if the family continue to prosper, the 
children will be sent to a secondary or high school. The eldest 
will go away to a normal school or college of some kind, and the 
eldest boy will go, perhaps, to Tuskegee or some other industrial 
school. When these children return home they will sometimes go 
to work to earn money enough to help other younger members of 
the family to enter the schools which they have attended and thus, 
in time, the whole family will manage to get a moderate amount of 
education. 

When all the members of the family work together in this way 
there are the best possible relations in the home. It is in those 
homes, of which there are unfortunately too many in every town 
and city, where the father works irregularly and the mother is com- 
pelled to do day labor, that one meets idle and neglected children, 
a large proportion of whom grow up to recruit the shiftless, loafing 
and criminal class. 

As a rule the Negro artisan is thrifty. The following budget 
is that of a journeyman printer. 



Negro Home Life and Standards of Living 157 

Living expenses *240 

Clothing 60 

Church and school 12 

Medicine and medical attendance 16 

Insurance, taxes and interest 84 

Incidentals 48 

Savings 1^0 

Total !8610 

This man lives in a neat five-room cottage which he owns. 
His wife conducts a little store and in addition to his work as jour- 
neyman printer he conducts a little Sunday school paper. He is 
district superintendent of Sunday schools in the neighboring county, 
and employs his Sundays in visiting the Sunday schools under his 
charge and in circulating, incidentally, the paper he publishes, so 
that, at the present time, his annual revenue is considerably larger 
than his earnings at his trade. 

Negroes who are employed in industries in which the laborers 
are organized, as for example the building trades and the coal and 
iron industries, earn more, but, perhaps save less. Negro miners 
earn frequently as much as from $100 to $150 per month. These 
men live well, according to their light, but they are notoriously 
wasteful and improvident and, except in those cases where their 
employers have taken an interest in their welfare, they have made 
little if any advance in their standards of living over the farm 
laborers or tenant farmers from which they, in most instances, arc 
recruited. 

Among the free Negroes in the South there were, in slavery 
times, a certain number of planters and slave owners. Some of the 
Negro planters of Louisiana were wealthy, for four or five of them 
were said in 1853 to be worth between four and five hundred thou- 
sand dollars each. Others were small traders, peddlers, blacksmiths, 
shoemakers and so forth. In some of the older cities of the South, 
like Charleston, S. C, there was a little aristocracy of free Negroes, 
who counted several generations of free ancestors and because of 
their industry, thrift and good reputation among their white neigh- 
bors, enjoyed privileges and immunities that were not granted to 
other free Negroes in the South. 

Not only in Charleston but in Baltimore, Washington, D. C, 
Philadelphia, New York and New Orleans there were similar groups 



158 The Annals of the American Academy 

of free colored people, who were well to do and had obtained a 
degree of culture that raised them above the mass of the Negro 
people, free or slave, by whom they were surrounded. Associated 
with the free Negroes were a certain number of privileged slaves 
who were frequently the illegitimate sons of their masters. 

It was from this class of free Negroes and privileged slaves 
that, a little later on, the professional class among the Negroes, the 
lawyers, the physicians and to a very large extent the teachers, were 
recruited. It was not until after politics as a profession for Negroes 
began to decline in the South, that a number of men who had entered 
politics directly after the Civil War began to go into business. As 
they had, in many instances, either by inheritance or as a result 
of their savings while they were serving the government, succeeded 
in accumulating a certain amoung of capital, they frequently went 
into some sort of real estate or banking business. 

About 1890 the first successful bank was started by Negroes. 
There are now more than sixty such banks in the United States. 
Either in connection with these banks or independently there have 
been organized small investment companies for the purchase or sale 
of real estate and, as the demand for homes by Negroes of all classes 
has grown rapidly in recent years, the number of these institutions 
has multiplied. 

As business opportunities have increased, the number of Negro 
business men has been recruited from the professional classes. Very 
frequently Negro physicans have started drug stores in connection 
with the practice of their profession, and from that they have gone 
into real estate or banking. 

As the opportunities for Negro lawyers have been small, par- 
ticularly in the South, most of them have connected themselves with 
some sort of business in which their legal Imowledge was of value- 
real estate, insurance, saving and investment associations, and so 

forth. 

One of the wealthiest Negroes in the South today started as 
a physician, made his money in the drug business and in real estate, 
and has since become a banker. The president of the largest Negro 
bank in the South, the Alabama Penny Savings Bank, was formerly 
a minister. 

It is in this way that the ranks of the Negro business men have 
been recruited from the members of the educated classes. 



Negro HOxAie Life and Standards of Living loQ 

However, the first Negro business men were, not as a rule 
educated. In the North, before the war, the most successful Negro 
busmess men were barbers and caterers. In the South, directly 
after the war several Negroes who had made small fortunes started 
in the saloon business. They had been employed, perhaps, as por- 
ters and bartenders and eventually went into business for themselves. 
There were special opportunities in the whisky business, because in 
the bar rooms whites and blacks met upon something like equality. 
It was not until recently that the regulators of the liquor traffic 
in certain cities required separate bars for the different races. Even 
now there is usually a back door for Negroes. Sometimes, where 
the bulk of the trade is supplied by Negroes, they have the front 
door and the whites the back. 

In certain other business-like undertakings, in which Negroes 
have found that they could get better service from black men than 
from white, Negroes early found a busmess opportunity which they 
have since largely exploited. The wealthiest Negro in New York 
today is an undertaker. 

A number of Negroes, who began as journeymen in the build- 
ing trades, rose to the position of contractors and then became large 
landlords, living upon their rents. In one comparatively large city 
in the South the most successful baker and in another, the most 
successful fish dealer, are Negroes. These men have been successful, 
not because of any special opportunity opened to them, as in the 
case of the Negro physician and the Negro undertaker, but because 
they were enterprising, and knew how to handle the trade. Both 
these men do the larger part of their business with the white rather 
than with the colored people. 

The president of the largest and most successful Negro insur- 
ance company in the South, the North Carolina Mutual and Provi- 
dent Association, was formerly a barber. In most instances the 
successful business men have been men with very meagre education 
and very few opportunities. These pioneers, however, have made 
opportunities for others and they have accumulated an amount of 
capital and experience which has laid the foundation for an en- 
terprising middle class, now rapidly advancing in wealth and in 
culture. 

As soon as a Negro has succeeded in accumulating a little 
money, his first ambition is to build himself a comfortable home. 



160 The Annals of the American Academy 

At first the Negro's attempts at home building are, as might be 
expected, a little crude. For example, if he plans his own house, 
he usually puts the bathroom off the kitchen. After he gets a 
bathroom he will probably want to have some pictures on the walls. 
The thing that strikes his fancy is usually something in a large 
gilt frame such as one can buy cheap in an auction store. Then he 
acquires a gilt lamp, an onyx table, perhaps, and a certain amount 
of other furniture of the same sort. 

If, in addition to a comfortable income, he has gained a mod- 
erate amount of education, he wants to travel, and see something 
of the world. This disposition on the part of the Negro, when- 
ever he can find excuse for it, serves, however, to correct his first 
crude attempts at home decoration and to widen his views about 
the value and convenience of a well-planned house. The numerous 
conventions which ever}^ year bring together large numbers of 
Negroes from all over the country provide an excuse for travel. 
The fact that it is difficult for Negroes to get hotel accommoda- 
tions in many parts of the country put upon every colored man 
who has a comfortable house, the obligation of opening his house 
to every member of his race who comes well recommended. Some 
times Negroes who have been a little extravagant in building and 
furnishing a house are very glad to rent rooms to a select class of 
travelers. In any case, Negroes are naturally hospitable. They 
take a very proper pride in their houses, when they happen to have 
good ones, and are always glad to entertain visitors. 

As a result of this custom of keeping open house Negroes are 
doubtless more disposed than they otherwise would be to take pride 
in the care and decoration of their homes. There may be something, 
also, in the explanation which one colored man made for building 
and equipping a home in a style which seemed a little beyond his 
means. He said: "We may have been, wife and I, a little extrava- 
gant in building and furnishing our house, but the house in which 
we were born had none of these things, and we are trying to make 
up to our children what we missed when we were little." The 
result of this is that for the Negro travel is often an education in 
home building. In every home he enters he notices closely and 
when he returns home he profits by what he learns. 

Negroes of the better class not only travel a great deal in this 
country but a considerable number of educated Negroes go abroad 



Negro Home Life and Standards op Living 161 

every year and from these journeys they bring back not only many 
new and happy impressions but also a considerable amount of informa- 
tion in the art of living that they do not have the opportunity to 
get at home. In the course of time all this experience and infor- 
mation filter down and are used by the well-to-do class of Negroes 
everywhere. 

The number of really cultured Negro homes is, as might be 
expected, small. One reason is that thoroughly educated Negroes 
are as yet few in number. The handsomest home I visited was that 
of a physician in Wilmington, Del. This man was living in a fine 
old ante-l)ellum mansion with extensive grounds, which has recently 
sold, I have been informed, for something like $50,000. This house 
not only had the charm of individuality, but it was furnished, so 
far as I am capable of judging, in perfect good taste. It contained 
one of the best general libraries I have seen in a private house. 
The mistress of this house was a graduate of Wellesley College. 
There are perhaps a dozen other houses owned by Negroes in the 
United States that could compare with this. 

The entertainment in a Negro house is likely to be lavish. No 
matter how frugal the family may live at other times, there must 
be no stinting of the entertairmient of guests. Not infrequently 
it vAll happen that a young colored man who has pinched and 
struggled to save money while he was getting an education, or while 
he was struggling to get himself established in business, will spend 
all his income as soon as he reaches a point where he is admitted into 
the upper grades of colored society. 

One man, a physician in a northern city, with an income which 
averages between .fo,000 and $6,000 a year, showed me his bank 
book covering a period of eighteen years during which time he had 
spent $103,000. And yet this same man, during the time that he 
was working, sometimes as a school teacher and at other times as 
a house servant on a salary of $25 or $30 a month, had saved $3,000 
to put himself through college. Another young man told me that 
he had saved enough money as a porter in a Negro barber shop, 
while he was learning the trade, to buy a shop of his own but had 
lost it, when, after becoming the proprietor of the shop, he was 
admitted to what he called "society." 

It is difficult to determine accurately the income of the well- 
to-do Negroes in this country. There are two and perhaps three 



162 The Annals of the American Academy 

physicians whose incomes from their practice alone amounts to SIO,- 
000 a year. There are several lawyers who make as much. A con- 
siderable number of men in business or in other professions make 
considerably more. As a rule, the business men save their money 
but men in the professions usually spend it. 

The average income of a Negro physician in the South is not 
over $1,500 but very frequently enterprising physicians will add to 
their regular earnings by maintaining a sanitarium or private hos- 
pital. 

The most popular profession among the Negroes is, perhaps, 
that of teaching, one reason being that, in the past comparatively 
little preparation was required to enter it. Neither teaching nor the 
ministry is as popular as it used to be. One reason is the demand 
for men and women with better preparation; another is the poor 
pay. The better schools are, however, increasing salaries, particu- 
larly those of principals and of a higher grade of teachers. The fol- 
lowing budgets indicate the standard of living among the better 

paid teachers : 

1 

Budget Estimate for Year. 

Insurance, taxes, etc $168 

Living expenses 384 

Medicine and medical services 96 

Clothing 144 

Miscellaneous and incidental 66 

Literature 42 

Savings and investment 300 

Total $1,200 

Living expense does not include vegetables from garden or house rent, 
which is paid by institution. 

8 

Allowance to mother $120 

Charity, benevolences and religious 150 

Property 300 

Groceries 300 

In r n ^ ^^^® ^^ 

\ Household goods 6 92 

Upkeep of house 100 

Education of sister 90 

Clothing 275 

Books, magazines and papers 25 

Tot:ii $1,452 

I'uel, light, house rent furnished by state. Total income between $1,800 
and $2,000. 



Negro Home Life and Standards of Living 163 

The first of these budgets is that of one of the better paid teachers 
of one of the best of the larger industrial schools. The second is 
that of the principal of another of these institutions. 

Negroes of all classes are willing to make and do make great 
sacrifices to secure the education of their children, but in the upper 
classes, where the children are few, they are usually spoiled; while 
on the plantation, where they are many, the family discipline is likelj^ 
to be severe. 

Home life among the educated and well-to-do Negroes appears 
as a rule, to be happy and wholesome; but nowhere is this more true 
than in those families where the parents, though educated, the in- 
come is so small that all members of the family are impelled to 
work together to maintain the standards of living and secure for the 
children an education, equal, if not superior, to that which the 
parents have enjoyed. 

The Negro has made great progress in many directions during 
the past half century, but nowhere more so than in his home, and 
nowhere, it may be added, do the fruits of education show to better 
advantage than in the home of the educated Negro. 



RACE RELATIONSHIP IN THE SOUTH 

By W. D. Weatherford, Ph.D./ 
Nashville, Tenn. 

Perhaps the most difficult task which one ever sets for himself is 
an attempt to understand even imperfectly, much more difficult to 
trace with any degree of scientific accuracy, the feelings that lie behind 
any relationships of human beings who are brought into close juxta- 
position in life. This is all the more difficult when the peoples brought 
into such relationship are of widely differing racial types. Here one 
has no statistics that are accurate, and it is even difficult to get men 
from either side to express themselves freely. Yet there are certain 
attitudes which come to the surface in thought and action, which 
enable the careful observer to sense this inter-racial feehng. 

The attitude of the two races in the South towards each other 
naturally shows three types or tendencies, each corresponding to a 
rather clearly marked period of history in the development of the 
South. Of the first two of these attitudes we need speak but briefly. 

The first period of race relationship in the South runs from 1619, 
the time of the landing of the first slaves by a Dutch trading vessel, 
up to the breaking out of the Civil War. It may be briefly charac- 
terized as an era of paternaUsm on the part of the majority of slave 
owners, and of faithful, childlike loyalty on the part of the most of 
the slaves. We are too far away from slavery, and see its evils too 
clearly to make any attempt whatever to justify it, or even to gloss 
over its hardships. But if we are to understand the present relations 
of the races, a word must be said about this earlier attitude. Tiiat 
this period was marked by good feeling on both sides in the vast 
majority of cases, I believe no honest investigator could doubt. The 
great mass of slaves were not owned by the big planters and workerl 
in gangs driven by a cruel overseer, but rather they were distributed in 
small groups, on the small plantations, where they had a large degree 
of personal attention from both master and mistress. I have known 

'The author of this paper is a Southern man, trained in a Southern uni- 
versity, and has travelled throughout the South during the last twelve years. 

164 



Race Relationship in the South 165 

and talked with scores of these faithful slaves, and rarely have I found 
other than a feeling of deep love and loyalty to that generation of 
Southern white people, who, although, they were mistaken in the 
defense of slavery, nevertheless tempered their mistake with a most 
kindly heart. 

These were the days before men's passions had been aroused, 
and when the better nature of most men — not all — was in the ascen- 
dency. This better nature expressed itself in many ways. For one, 
the Southern church assumed a definite responsibility for the Chris- 
tianizing of the slaves. In 1860, at the breaking out of the Civil "War, 
the Methodist Episcopal Church South had 327 white missionaries 
in the field working for the evangelization of the slaves, and the budget 
of that one church for that year for Negro evangehzation was more 
than $86,000. All the other Southern denominations were having a 
large share in this type of work. Bishop W. R. Lambuth, of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church South, who is one of the best authorities 
on the Negro, is now saying that one of the greatest pieces of mis- 
sionary work the world has ever seen was the evangelization of the 
Negro in this first period of his slavery. This fact is significant to 
us here only as it shows us what the relation of the whites was toward 
blacks at this early period. On the other hand, the attitude of the 
Negroes was one of loyalty and affection — omitting, of course, those 
who were worked in large gangs under the cruel overseer. No better 
proof of the truth of this statement could be asked than the simple 
fact that during all the dark days of the Civil War the Negroes were 
entrusted with the lives, the property, and the honor of the Southern 
white homes — and no Negro was found faithless in this sacred trust. 
Such faithfulness and loyalty were not the fruit of hatred, but of love. 
If one visits some of the old plantations, with the "big house" and the 
long rows of whitewashed cabins which flank its sides — one can still 
find many signs of this kindly feeling between the races. But this 
particular relationship is gone forever, and we may well be thankful 
it is. Perhaps some will regret more that the feeling begotten by 
that relationship has almost as completely disappeared. 

The second period of race relationship in the South may be called, 
for want of a better term, the period of reconstruction. This period 
extends from the close of the Civil "War to the early nineties. It is 
marked by a growing distrust on the part of the white man, and a 
growing hatred on the part of the black man. It is one of those sad 



166 The Annals of the American Academy 

and unfortunate periods when all men seem to be in a sense blind. 
The North felt that the South was attempting to forge a new chain 
of slavery for the Negro; the South felt that the North was trying to 
enslave the white man by putting the ignorant and inexperienced 
into the saddle of government: the Negro was the football between 
the two, hardly daring to trust the Southern man, scarcely believing 
in the sincerity of the Northern man — feehng himself ground between 
two relentless mill stones — and Imowing not whither to turn. In all 
this dark period there are only two redeeming rays of light. One of 
these consists in the fact that the Negro was never denied a chance 
in the South to make an honest dollar. Whatever other injustices 
he may have suffered he was never denied the right to work, provided 
he had been trained, as most of them had, through the thousands of 
plantations which were highly practical trade schools. Dr. Booker T. 
Washington has said in a dozen different ways that the South is and 
always has been the Negroes' greatest field of industrial opportunity. 

The second ray of hope in these dark days lay in the fact that 
both South and North realized that the Negro must be trained and 
made efficient. The North poured its thousands of dollars into mission 
schools, and added thereto scores of priceless and unselfish lives to 
bring the message, while the South as early as the seventies settled the 
question, once for all, that the Negro should have a chance for train- 
ing. In the years that have passed the South has put multiplied 
millions of dollars into this enterprise which, however discouraging in 
the past, is now beginning to show signs of rich fruitage. 

The terrible results of the period of reconstruction lay in the fact 
that the old feeling of love and loyalty, trust and helpfulness between 
Southern whites and Southern blacks was almost entirely broken 
down, and there was a severe separation of the Southern white man 
and the Southern Negro. The two grew apart and soon began to be 
ignorant of the thought and life each of the other. The old intimate 
relation of the two was gone and nothing took its place. It was but 
natural that this ignorance should soon breed contempt and later 
hatred. 

This in a word characterizes the first two periods of race relation- 
ships. One sa3'^s they are behind him; another does not care to dwell on 
them at length. There is no more pitiable piece of demagoguery going 
than that practiced by some who dwell exclusively on the past kind- 
ness of the white man, the loyalty of the Negro, and the horror of 



Race Relationship in the South 167 

reconstruction, forgetting the present duties that fall to each citizen 
whether white or black. These things are of the past — and let the 
dead past bury its dead. We are now interested in what the living 
relationship is between white and black in the South. 

It was not until far into the nineties that the third period of this 
race relationship began to dawn. With the coming of such men as 
Chancellor D. C. Barrow of the University of Georgia, Bishop 
Charles B. Galloway of Mississippi — and, more definitely, with the 
coming of Mr. Edgar Gardiner Murphy of Alabama — whose book 
on the Present South marked a new era of thought — with the coming 
of these and others likeminded the new epoch was slowly ushered in. 
But even the last decade of the last century saw little progress, and 
the first half of the first decade of our present century was scarcely 
more than the budding of a larger hope that has been blossoming 
out into a rose of beauty in these last five years. I do not believe it 
to be an over-statement that the last five years have seen the growth 
of sentiment, more constructive work done, more ripening of what 
before was only unmatured thought, than in all the time from recon- 
struction on. It is with a glad heart, therefore, that one attempts to 
measure in some degree the growth of this idea of brotherhood between 
the races during these last five years. 

As I remarked before, we cannot rely on statistics to guide us 
here, but must choose, as our guides in estimating present feeling, 
those events and thought currents that rise to the surface of Southern 
life. It must be largely the laboratory method of first hand investiga- 
tion, which will furnish the data for such a statement as this. I 
shall attempt, therefore, to mention a few events and tendencies 
which will throw light on the present feeling existing between the 
races. 

1. Perhaps the tendency most easily discerned is the growing 
appreciation on the part of the Southern white man of a real system 
of training for the Negro. As before stated the Southern States 
deUberately set their faces toward such a policy during the seventies. 
Since that time more than $200,000,000 have been spent on the Negro 
public schools, and of course most of this has been paid by the white 
tax payer, though two corrective words should be said in this connec- 
tion. First, the Negro is rapidly coming to bear his share of the taxes 
for education since he now owns property valued at $700,000,000. 
The second word is that ultimately the labor which produces wealth 



168 The Annals of the American Academy 

pays the taxes, and the Negro, as the laborer of the South, has always 
produced much of the wealth which has paid the taxes for education. 
But there is a new attitude toward the training of the Negro. 
Somehow in the past we have offered this training — such as it was — 
but half way hoped it would not be taken. In fact many have be- 
lieved that it would be harmful if taken. But I believe we are seeing 
a new light. We are not only offering a better training to the Negro 
now than ever before, but we are also eager to see him take advantage 
of this training and most of us believe in our heart of hearts that he 
will be a better man, a better citizen, and a more efficient economic 
factor if he will take all the training offered and more. There is no 
danger now that the Southern white man will retrench in his plans 
for developing the Negro race. The demagogues have blasted away 
at this rock of our faith with all the political dynamite at their disposal 
but the rock is unmoved. Thanks to the good common sense and the 
Christian spirit of the South, Mr. Vardaman, Mr. Blease, and others 
likeminded, who would give to the Negro only what he pays, are fight- 
ing a losing battle. The whole South has become convinced that the 
Negro must have a chance — and in this we are really reaching a sense 
of democracy which we have never before known. 

2. This leads me to a second indication of a growing sense of 
fiiendliness on the part of the Southern white man — a new appreci- 
ation of the value of naked humanity. Not interest in a man because 
he is cultured, or wealthy, or influential, but because he is human. 
This is the basis of all democracy, and incidentally one might remark 
it i.s a higher democracy than Thomas Jefferson ever dreamed of. 
This is coming not only in the South but also slowly, all over the world. 
It is more than the square deal economically of which we have heard — 
it is respecting and appreciating and having a friendly attitude toward 
all humanity. This feeling finds expression in the new hatred of lynch- 
ing which is growing in the South. We are coming to see that we can- 
not lynch Negroes and continue to hold our sense of respect for hu- 
manity as humanity. In spite of a few demogogues and hot heads 
who get their names in the associated press as advocates of summary 
dealings with certain types of Negroes, the determination is growing 
in the hearts of thousands of the best Southern whites that the lynch- 
ing of Negroes must stop. 

3, There is also a decided movement on the part of the lawyers, 
business men and others to see that more justice is done to the Negroes 



Rm^ce Relationship in the South 169 

in the courts. All of these things are the outcome of this new respect 
for the humanity of the Negro. 

4. A still further result of this appreciation of the sacredness of 
all persons lies in the newer forms of social service which are being 
promoted among Negroes. Never before has there been so much talk 
about the condition of sanitation in the midst of which Negroes live. 
Never has the health of the Negro elicited so much attention as now. 
Never has the housing question had so much careful, painstaking 
study as has been undertaken within the last five years. The Southern 
Sociological Congress, which met in its second annual session in At- 
lanta, Georgia, last April studied six great questions in its section 
meetings. One of these questions was the Negro hfe. There were six 
hundred delegates — including perhaps more than a hundred Negroes 
who were regular members of the Congress, and at least four hundred 
of the six hundred delegates were regularly in attendance at the Race 
Problem section — while the remaining two hundred attended the other 
five sections. For three days we four hundred — white and black — 
discussed in a perfect spirit of harmony and helpfulness the big prob- 
lems of our relation to each other and our basis of cooperation ! We 
discussed health, housing, sanitation, education, religious life, eco- 
nomic progress — all in the spirit of constructive cooperation between 
the races. Both Negroes and white men entered into the discussion, 
and the feeling of cordial helpfulness was the most remarkable evi- 
dence of a new fellowship and appreciation. One could enlarge at 
length, not only on the importance of the study of these problems, 
but also on what is more significant — the cooperative study which the 
two races are undertaldng together. It marks a new era. It is the 
return of the old confidence of the first era of slavery without the 
handicaps and evils that burdened that period.^ 

5. One must pass quickly to another indication of the better 
relationship between the races, found in the eager attention given by 
Southern white college men to this whole topic. Some have felt 
that this is by far the most hopeful sign of the times, and indeed it 
is most significant. Some four years ago the leaders of the Student 
Young Men's Christian Associations in the South felt that something 
must be done to bring the white college men to know the Negro 

2 For full proceedings of the Congress, write J. E. McCulloch, Nashville, 
Tenn. Price, $2. 



170 The Annals of the American Academy 

as he is today, and through that knowledge to bring to the college a 
spirit of helpfulness. It was felt that the college men were the most 
open-minded and responsive section of our Southern life, and would 
most readily accept the suggestion of a thorough study of the whole 
problem. A volume^ was, therefore, prepared with this group of men 
in mind, and was launched through the voluntary organization of the 
Student Christian Association. The fondest hope of those who were 
promoting the scheme did not expect that more than one or two thou- 
sand college men could be secured to make this study during the 
first year. What was our surprise and great delight to find that 
four thousand men enrolled and followed the course with great enthu- 
siasm. To our greater surprise nearly six thousand students enrolled 
the second year, and a demand came for more detailed information 
as to progress in the race itself. A second volume has, therefore, 
been prepared* and large numbers of both college men and women 
have been enrolled in the study of these two books during the past 
year. Many of the churches are now taking up the study, and in not 
a few schools these volumes have been introduced into the curriculum 
study of economics and sociology, as parallel reading. Under the 
leadership of Dr. James H. Dillard of the Jeanes and Slater Funds, a 
commission of state university professors has also been organized, 
which is making a first hand investigation of the whole subject of the 
uplift of the Negro. The members of this commission are appointed 
officially by the faculties of these state universities, and hence their 
findings \\dll have much weight and influence. 

6. The outcome of this study on the part of so many of our 
choicest young men and women in the South, has been not a little first 
hand social investigation, and even more of social service. In some 
university centers the white college men organized the Negro men of 
the city in a study of civil problems, such as health, housing, sanita- 
tion, the relation of illiteracy to economic efficiency, the relation of 
the whiskey traffic to the life of the Negro, and other kindred themes. 
Seventy-five Negro men were members of this study club, and out of 
it has grown a Negro city charities organization. In dozens of other 
college centers Negro boys' clubs have been organized, night schools 
established, Sunday schools started, lectures on civic conditions given, 

^ Negro Life in the South. Association Press, New York. Price, 50 cents. 
■* Present Forces in Negro Progress. Association Press, New York. Price, 
50 cents. 



Race Relationship in the South 171 

etc. The Southern white college men are coming to realize this respon- 
sibility to help the Negro — not as a Negro, but as a man who has had 
less chance than themselves, and to whom they should pass on some 
of their larger life. 

7. This leads me to add a sentence about the dedication of 
Southern life to the problem. It was said earlier that the Methodist 
Church in the South had 327 white missionaries at work for the 
Negro at the opening of the Civil War. At that time many of the 
slave holders prided themselves on the instruction both mental and 
moral which they could personally impart to their slaves. Davis, 
Lee, and Jackson, were all conspicuous examples of this. But after 
the war the Southern white people left this to the Northern missionary 
and the Negro himself. Now and then an outstanding man like Rev. 
John Little in Louisville, Kentucky, would dedicate his hfe to the 
uplift of the Negro, but their number was small. Now, however, 
that more study is being done and that a new spirit is dawning, a 
goodly company of our choicest white college men and women are 
offering their lives to the uplift of the Negro race. Perhaps no one will 
ever be able to measure the tremendous contribution of such men as 
Mr. Jackson Davis, of Virginia, Mr. J. L. Sibley of Alabama, and Dr. 
James H. Dillard of New Orleans and others who are giving them- 
selves to the building up of the rural Negro schools. They are men 
out of the heart of the old South, men with high traditions of family, 
of splendid training, and their work marks an entirely new attitude 
toward the whole race problem throughout the South. During the 
last three years quite a number of undergraduate students in our white 
colleges have deliberately dedicated their lives to the uplift of the 
Negro race. Hundreds of these young men are definitely planning 
to have their part of this race uplift, as laymen serving on boards of 
trustees for schools, members of committees on social service, etc. 
This is by all means the most hopeful sign of a better day of race 
understanding in the South. 

8. One of the most significant outreaches of the new interest on 
the part of Southern white men is to be seen in the growth of race 
pride and race consciousness on the part of the Negro. No race can 
ever expect to elicit respect and confidence from others so long as it 
does not believe in itself. If the Negro in the South wants to win the 
favor and the sympathetic cooperation of the white man there is no 
surer way of doing this than through the development of his own race 



172 The Annals of the American Academy 

consciousness and race pride. The white people of the South are doing 
much to develop this spirit. Through a better type of school which 
makes the Negro more efficient and self respecting; through farm 
demonstration work which makes the farmer economically inde- 
pendent; through working with the Negro rather than for the Negro 
in social uplift; and in many other ways the Negro is being helped 
into self-respecting citizenship. When the Negro has become economi- 
cally efficient, intellectually more advanced, racially self conscious, 
there will be far less friction, for he will then feel as the white man 
feels that racial integrity and social separation are best for both 
races. Indeed most of the best trained Southern Negroes I know at 
present feel as the white man does about this matter — that each race 
can make its largest contribution to humanity if it develops its own 
race life and race consciousness. It has been the fear on the part of 
the Southern white man that development of the Negro intellectually 
and economically would mean race amalgamation. But as this race 
consciousness grows stronger and stronger in the Negro race this 
feeling will be allayed and the two races will dwell side by side in a 
spirit of increasing brotherhood. As a Southern man, trained in a 
Southern University, living daily in the midst of these vexatious 
problems, and working every day to bring about better relations, I 
feel decidedly that the outlook is brighter than it has ever been in 
our history. 

The careful scientific study being made by college students and 
professors, the new spirit of social service cooperation, the better type 
of farming methods passed on by the white men to their colored 
neighbors, the more efficient Negro schools carried on under the 
direction of our choicest white educators, the growth of race pride 
on the part of the Negro himself, and the growing respect for person- 
ality as such — all these are signs of the dawning of a new and brighter 
dav both for white and black in the South, 



THE WORK OF THE JEANES AND SLATER FUNDS 

By B. C. Caldwell, 
The John F. Slater Fund, New York. 

These organizations have the same purpose, the training of 
Negro youth in the Southern States; they have the same director, 
the president of the Jeanes Fund being also director of the Slater 
fund; and they have the same offices in New Orleans and New York. 
They have separate though overlapping boards of trustees. 

The Jeanes work is confined to rural schools, and is almost 
entirely industrial. Most of the Slater revenue is spent for sec- 
ondary and higher education, mainly academic, partly vocational 
and industrial. 

The Jeanes work, now in its fifth year, entered a new field. 
From the start it aimed to reach the school in the background — 
the remote country school for Negro children, out of sight in the 
backwoods, down the bayou, on the sea marsh, up in the piney woods, 
or out in the gullied wilderness of abandoned plantations. Nearly 
all these schools are held in shabby buildings, mostly old churches, 
some in cabins and country stores, a few in deserted dwellings. I 
have seen one in Alabama held in a saw-mill shed, one in Missis- 
sippi in a barn, one in Georgia in a peach-packing shed, one in Ar- 
kansas in a dry-kiln, one in Louisiana in a stranded flatboat, and 
one in Texas in a sheepfold. For the most part these schools are 
taught by untrained teachers without any sort of supervision. The 
equipment is generally meagre, the pay small and the term short. 
The Jeanes Fund undertook to send trained industrial teachers into 
this field to help the people to improve the physical conditions and 
the teachers to better the instruction given the children. 

The teachers employed in this work are trained in some kind 
of industrial work, domestic or vocational. Most of them teach 
sewing. Next in number are those who teach cooking. Some are 
graduate nurses, some laundresses, some basket-makers, some farm- 
ers and dairymen; and truck-gardening, blacksmithing, carpentry, 
mattress-making, baking, and shoemaking are among the industries 
taught by these teachers. 

173 



174 The Annals of the American Academy 

For the current year there are 120 Jeanes teachers at work, 
in 120 counties of 11 Southern States, Maryland to Texas. Each 
teacher visits a number of the country schools, gives a lesson in 
some industry, plans with the regular teacher to give succeeding 
lessons in her absence, organizes parents' clubs and starts a move- 
ment for better school equipment of longer term, counsels the local 
teacher about her daily teaching, and stirs the community to united 
effort to better the school. Although paid by the Jeanes Fund, 
all these teachers are selected by the county superintendent, do 
their work under his direction and are members of his teaching 
corps just like the other teachers of the county. 

In many counties this spring the industrial teacher gathered 
specimens of sewing, baking, pastry, basketry, chair-caning, mat- 
tresses, shuck mats, garden truck, carpentry and furniture from all 
the schools of the county and put them on exhibition at the court- 
house, at the superintendent's office or other central point. These 
exhibits were visited by numbers of school patrons, teachers, children 
and the white school officials and citizens. In some cases prizes 
were offered by banks, merchants, railroads and planters for the 
best work in the various crafts. 

The industrial teachers are graduates of Hampton, Pratt Insti- 
tute, Tuskegee, Petersburg, Cheney, Fisk, Atlanta and kindred insti- 
tutions. All of them are Negroes. Their salaries range from $40 
to $75 a month, and their terms from six to twelve months a year. 

At the outset the entire expense of this industrial work was 
borne by the Jeanes Fund. After a year or two the county school 
boards began contributing, sometimes paying the traveling expenses 
of the industrial teacher, sometimes buying sewing machines, cook 
stoves and washtubs for the schools, sometimes renting plots of 
ground for farm and garden work. Last year one or two counties 
took over the entire expense of the work, and fifteen or twenty 
undertook to pay half or part of the teacher's salary. 

The Slater Fund from the beginning has devoted most of its 
means to the higher education of Negro youth, mainly with the 
jjurpose of training teachers for the primary schools. But almost 
from the start it has contributed to public school work in town and 
city with the same general end in view, devoting its entire contribu- 
tion to these public schools to the establishment and maintenance 
of industrial and vocational training. At this time more than three- 



Work of the Jeanes and Slater Funds 175 

fourths of the Slater money is still applied to higher school work, 
mainly urban and academic. But for the past year or two the 
Slater trust has been experimenting with some new and promising 
work in the country. 

Several years ago a parish superintendent in Louisiana applied 
to the Slater Fund for assistance in establishing a country high 
school for Negro children. Almost at the same time a county super- 
intendent in Virginia, another in Arkansas, and one in Mississippi 
proposed substantially the same thing. In each case the main pur- 
pose was to train teachers for the country schools of the county. 
Trained teachers cannot be had for the pitiful salary paid to country 
Negro teachers. And each of these superintendents hoped to get a 
regular and fairly good supply of teachers definitely trained to do 
the work needed in his county. 

The parish of Tangipahoa, La., was the first to undertake the 
establishment of such a school. Superintendent Lewis named it the 
Parish Training School for Colored Children, and located it at Kent- 
wood, a village in the piney woods part of the parish. The parish 
school board supplied the teachers and equipment, the Brooks-Scanlon 
Lumber Company furnished material for the house and ten acres 
of land, and the Slater Fund gives $500 a year for industrial teach- 
ing. The school is now in its second year and promises to render 
valuable service to the parish. 

Three similar schools have been estabhshed since; one in New- 
ton County, Miss., to which the county, the town of Newton and 
an organization of colored people contributed; another in Hempstead 
County, Ark., where a town school supported by state and local 
funds was converted into a central training school (not county, 
because there is no county school body in Arkansas), and the funds 
were raised by the town of Hope, the local cotton men, and the 
white and colored citizens individually; and a third in Sabine Parish, 
Louisiana, where a large community school, seven miles in the 
country, was made the parish training school, supported by the 
Sabine school board, with contributions of the timber syndicates 
owning most of the land around the school. In each of these cases 
the Slater Fund contributes $500 a year for three years, the con- 
tributions to be continued if the results justify the expenditure. 
There are no precedents to follow in this kind of work. Each of the 
counties is working out its problem in the way that seems best to 



176 The Annals of the American Academy 

the superintendent and school board. They vary greatly in local 
conditions, and each will have to feel its way toward the end in 
view. But all of them are making the training school distinctly 
agricultural and industrial all the way through the course offered, 
and some of them are already giving class work and handcraft of 
real worth. 

Every county in the South has felt the need of fairly well 
trained teachers for its Negro country schools. But so far as I 
know this is the first time that superintendents have actually gone 
to work to get such teachers by training them at home. It will 
take several years to work out the plan; and local school authorities 
Avill give their individual stamp to it in each county. But thus 
far it looks promising; and the end in view goes to the very heart 
of the whole matter of Negro education. 

I need not speak of the well known schools, Hampton, Tuskegee, 
Atlanta, Fisk, Spellman and the rest, to which the greater part of 
the Slater income is devoted. But in two of these and in several 
colored state normal schools the Slater Fund contributes to the 
maintenance of summer normal schools for teachers, offering good 
academic and industrial training for country teachers. 

Both the Jeanes Fund and the Slater Fund do a little in the 
way of helping to build school houses. In several counties of Georgia, 
South Carolina, and Alabama the Jeanes Fund is assisting in the 
building of one good Negro school house as a sample. In each case 
the community raises a fund for the house, the county school board 
gives an equal or larger sum, and the Jeanes Fund gives about one- 
third of the cost of the house. The Slater Fund contributes to the 
same kind of work in a limited way, and gives more largely to the 
equipment of town and city schools for vocational work. The mag- 
nificent new building for Negro children above the fifth grade erected 
by the city of Charleston was furnished with superior equipment 
for all kinds of hand and power work by the Slater Fund. 



NEGRO ILLITERACY IN THE UNITED STATES 

By J. P. LiCHTENBERGER, Ph.D., 
Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania. 

The study of illiteracy among the Negroes of the United States 
constitutes one of the most interesting chapters in the story of their 
achievements in fifty years of freedom. In most of the slave states, 
before 1861, it was a criminal offense to teach any Negro, slave or 
free, to read or write; so that illiteracy in the South among the Negroes 
at the time of the emancipation was nearly 100 per cent. 

While conditions were somewhat different in the North, and edu- 
cational opportunities were not Avholly denied, the number of Negroes 
who could avail themselves of these opportunities was so small as to 
affect only slightly the rate of illiteracy for the country as a whole. 
Conservative estimates place the illiteracy of the race at between 95 
and 97 per cent at the beginning of freedom. It is clear that this 
condition in no way indicates either the capacity or inclination of the 
race for acquiring education. It indicates merely the status of a 
people reared in barbarism, transplanted into the midst of civiliza- 
tion, but bearing none of its burdens and responsibilities, and partici- 
pating in no way in its social or cultural activities. The position of the 
Negro in the United States as a ward of civilization makes it practi- 
cally impossible to compare either his situation or his achievements 
with that of any other race or people in modern times. Wliatever 
progress he has made since the beginning of pohtical freedom cannot 
be attributed solely to his own desire for knowledge, nor to his inher- 
ent capacity, but must be regarded in the light of his imitative ability 
and the opportunities afforded for his advancement by the white 
population in the midst of which he has lived. 

Under the regime of slavery there was not only this general con- 
tlition, due to the attitude of the masters enforced by legal enactments, 
but there was likewise the absence on the part of the Negro of any 
motive for the acquiring of even the smallest elements of education. 
At the beginning of the period of freedom, the presence of this un- 
tutored race in the midst of American civilization formed an irresist- 

177 



178 



The Annals of the American Academy 



ible appeal to philanthropic spirited citizens for the education of 
this new class of freedmen. Had the Negro been left to himself, it 
would be difficult to predict what his present status would be. Not- 
withstanding the mistakes in the earlier period of the reconstruction 
in educational methods provided by the white population, and not- 
withstanding the inadequacy, not to say neglect, of Negro educational 
facilities up to the present time, the Negro has benefited greatly by 
such opportunities as are afforded by American educational institu- 
tions in general. 

In order to understand the present problem of illiteracy of the 
Negro race, a survey of the statistics collected by the census bureau 
over a period of years needs careful study and analysis. In the follow- 
ing table, several decades are presented for the purpose of a compara- 

Table I 



Class of population 



Total 

White 

Native 

Native parentage 

Foreign or mixed parentage. 

Foreign born 

Negro 

Indian 

Chinese 

Japanese 

All others 



Percentage of illiterates in the population 
10 years of age and over 



1910 



7.7 

5.0 

3.0 

3.7 

1.1 

12.7 

30.4 

45.3 

15.8 

9.2 

39.9 



1900 



10.7 

6.2 

4.6 

5.7 

1.6 

12.9 

44.5 

56.2 

29.0 

IS. 2 



1890 



13.3 

7.7 
6.2 
7.5 
2.2 
13.1 
57.1 

*45.2 



1880 

17.0 
9.4 

8.7 



12.0 
70.0 



Abstract of the Thirteenth Census, 1910, p. 239. 

five study. This table shows not only the amount and distribution 
of illiteracy among the various portions of the population, but as well 
the decline in illiteracy which has taken place in the period from 1880 
to 1910, in the various elements of the populations. 

Taking up these two principal aspects of the subjects in the order 
indicated, we find that illiteracy in the Negro group is 6 times that 
of the white group ; or, if we eliminate the persons of foreign birth or 
extraction, 10 times as great; there being 3 illiterate persons in every 
100 native white persons and 30.4 ilHterate persons in every 100 



Negro Illiteracy in the United States 



179 



Negroes. This comparison is wholly misleading and unfair in view of 
the distribution of the races. 

Two main phases of this distribution must be considered. First, 
the geographic situation and second, the urban and rural conditions. 

The following table is presented in order to show the relative 
statistics of ilhteracy of persons 10 years of age and over in the differ- 
ent sections of the country for 1910. 

Here we discover that Negro illiteracy in the North is not greatly 
in excess of white illiteracy in the South, the figures being re- 
spectively 10.5 per cent and 7.7 per cent, while in two of the southern 



Table II 








All classes 


Native white 
of native 
parentage 


Negro 


United States 


7.7 

5.3 

5.7 

3.4 

2.9 

16.0 

17.4 

13.2 

6.9 

3.0 

4.3 

15.6 
4.4 


3.7 
0.7 
1.2 
1.7 
1.7 
8.0 
9.6 
5.6 
3.6 
0.4 

1.4 

7.7 
1.7 


30.4 


New England 


7.8 


Middle Atlantic 


7.9 


East North Central 


11.0 


West North Central 


14.9 


South Atlantic 


32.5 


East South Central 


34.8 


West South Central 


33.1 


Mountain 


8.0 


Pacific. . .-. 


6.3 


North 


10.5 


South 


33.3 


West . 


7.0 







Abstract of the Thirteenth Census, 1910, p. 243. 



divisions it is 8.0 per cent and 9.6 per cent for the white, actually 
approximating that of the Negroes in New England. The higher 
rate of illiteracy in the South for both the white and colored portions 
of the population is attributed to the lack of facilities for securing an 
education. This at least is given as an explanation for the disparity 
in the rate of ilhteracy in the white population in the two sections of 
the country. To those who have studied the school conditions, par- 
ticularly in the South, it seems clear that inadequate as are facilities 
for white children, those afforded the colored children are much more 
inadequate. If facilities in the South were equal for black and white 
children, and as ample as in the North, it is safe to assume that the 



180 The Annals of the American Academy 

rate of illiteracy among Negroes in the South would much more nearly 
approximate that in the North. This of course would be true of both 
groups. 

In further explanation of the disparity in the rate of illiteracy 
for the Negro race as a whole as compared with that of the white, it 
should be remembered that whereas 60.6 per cent of the white popu- 
lation in 1910 was located in the North and 32 per cent in the South, 
but 10.5 per cent of the Negroes was found in the North and 89.5 
per cent in the South. Thus 89.5 per cent of the colored population 
in the United States shares the inadequate school facilities of the 32 
per cent of the white population. Since the illiteracy among the 
Negroes in the North is only 10.5 per cent while that of the illiteracy 
of the white population of the South is 7.7 per cent, it is clear that if 
there was an equal distribution either of population or of educational 
opportunities, much of the difference in the rates between the races 
would disappear. In other words, viewing the rate as a whole, it is 
impossible to show that the difference is fundamentally racial. 

A further comparison must be made in regard to the distribution 
of illiterates between city and country. The following table gives 
the distribution of illiteracy of persons 10 years of age and over in 
1910 in the urban and rural population. 

Of the total native white population of native parentage 10 years 
of age and over in continental United States in 1910, 37.7 per cent 
resided in cities of 2,500 or more inhabitants, and 62.3 per cent in 
rural districts and towns of less than 2,500 inhabitants. The illiteracy 
among the urban native born whites of native parentage was 0.9 per 
cent. In the rural districts it was 5.4 per cent. This difference in 
the main is conceded to be due, not to differences in the population 
under rural and urban conditions, but to the superior facilities for 
education afforded in urban communites. For example, the small 
amount of ilhteracy among persons of native birth but of foreign or 
mixed parentage amounting to only 1.1 per cent is explained not 
upon the basis of race differences between the persons of native and 
foreign ancestry, but is attributed largely to the fact that persons of 
foreign born or mixed parentage are for the most part city dwellers, 
and they have for that reason the superior advantage afforded for 
education in the cities. 

Turning now to the Negro population, we discover that of those 
10 years of age and over, 17.7 per cent are urban and 82.3 per cent 



Negro Illiteracy m the United States 



181 



are rural. Comparing the percentages of urban and rural conditions, 
we discover that 17.7 per cent of Negroes share, however unfairly 
because of racial discriminations, the advantages for education of the 

Table III 



Division and class of community 



United States 

Urban 

Rural 

New England 

Urban 

Rural 

Middle Atlantic 

Urban 

Rural 

East North Central 

Urban 

Rural 

West North Central 

Urban 

Rural 

South Atlantic 

Urban 

Rural 

East South Central 

Urban 

Rural 

West South Central 

Urban 

Rural 

Mountain 

Urban 

Rural 

Pacific 

Urban 

Rural 



All classes 



5.1 

10 1 

."j.G 
3.8 

5.8 
5.2 

.3.5 
3.2 



3.0 

8.5 
18.9 



9. 
19. 

7. 
15 



3.1 
9.1 

2.0 
4.3 



Native white 
of native 
parentage 



0.9 
5.4 

0.5 
1.2 

0.6 
1.9 

0.9 

2.2 

0.8 
2.1 

2.2 

9.8 

2.4 
11.1 

1.4 

6.8 

0.9 
5.1 

0.3 
0.6 



Negroes 



17.6 
36.1 

7.1 
16.9 

7.0 
12.2 

9.7 
15.8 

12.3 
21.0 

2,1.4 
36.1 

23.8 

.37. S 

20.3 
37.2 



['0 
10.6 



5.3 
11.4 



Abstract of the Thirteenth Census, 1910, p. 249. 

37.7 per cent of the white population, and 82.3 per cent of the Negroes 
share the rural educational opportunities of the 62.3 per cent of the 
whites. IVIuch of the illiterac}' among Negroes in the United States 
as a whole is therefore to be attributed to the fact that they are to 



182 The Annals of the American Academy 

such a large degree a rural people, handicapped by the inadequacy 
of rural educational conditions. It is safe to assume, therefore, that 
if the distribution of Negroes in regard to urban and rural conditions 
approximated that of the whole population, or of the native whites of 
native parentage, that the difference in iUiteracy would be considerably 
diminished. This generalization finds further proof in comparisons 
between various sections of the country, North and South, rural and 
urban. In New England, where the colored population is 83.2 per 
cent urban and 16.8 per cent rural, the rate of Negro illiteracy is 7.1 
per cent in cities, or somewhat less than the illiteracy of the entire 
population, while 16.9 per cent of the Negroes in the rural districts 
is illiterate. In the east south central divison of states, where the 
native white population of native parentage is 4.2 per cent urban and 
95.8 per cent rural, the rate of illiteracy among the whites is 2.4 per 
cent for the urban, and 11.1 per cent for the rural population. While 
Negro illiteracy is far in excess of that of the white population in 
every portion of the United States, nevertheless it is less in urban 
New England and the middle Atlantic chvisions than that of the rural 
white population in the south Atlantic and east south central chvisions. 

These facts make it clear that however great the disparity may 
be in sections where concUtions are similar, that, taking the country as 
a whole, the Negro race being so largely a southern rural people, the 
comparison between the actual rates of illiteracy for the white and 
colored populations does not reveal the true state of affairs in regard 
to the Negro's progress. Not^vithstanding the results revealed by 
sectional geographic comparisons, it still remains true that Negro 
ilhteracy is higher than that of the white population in each section 
as well as for the country as a whole, just as it is higher for both whites 
and Negroes in rural districts, as compared with urban chstricts, and 
higher in the South than in the North. 

The purpose in presenting this comparison has been not to mini- 
mize the importance or amount of Negro illiteracy, but merely to 
show that when due allowance has been made for differences of dis- 
tribution, much of the supposed evidence of race difference disappears. 
It seems clear that if equal advantages were afforded in school equip- 
ment in urban and rural districts, and if the Negroes were distributed 
in an equal ratio with the native whites of native parentage in both 
North and South, the total rate of illiteracy in general, now ten times 
as great among the Negroes as among the whites, would fall to probably 
three or four times the amount instead of ten. 



Negro Illitera.cy in the United States 



183 



Turning now to the decline in Negro illiteracy, it will be observed 
from the figures in table I that while the illiteracy for the total 
population declined during the period from 1880 to 1910 from 17.0 
per cent to 7.7 per cent, and that of the native whites of native parent- 
age from 8.7 to 3 per cent, that of Negro has been reduced from 
approximately 70 per cent to 30.4 per cent. The decHne of ilKteracy 
among the Negroes shows the same tendency toward diminution as 
among all the other groups barring the foreign born, except that it 
has been more rapid. In view of the facts of distribution presented 
in the previous paragraphs, this decrease has been little less than 
phenomenal. At the rate of decrease for the period 1880-1910, it 
wall require only a few decades more to bring the rate down to the 
level of that for the country as a whole at the present time and below 
that of the foreign born. 

The real significance of the decline among the Negroes is best 
observed by a comparison of age groups. 

Table IV. — Percentage of Illiteracy in the United States, 1910 



Age period 



10 years 
10 years 
15 years 
20 years 
25 years 
35 years 
45 years 
65 years 



and over. . . 
to 14 years, 
to 19 years. 
to 24 years, 
to 34 years, 
to 44 years, 
to 64 years, 
and over. . . 



All classes 



7. 

4. 

4. 

6. 

7. 

8. 
10.7 
14.5 



1 

.9 
.9 
.3 

.1 



Native white 
of native 
parentage 



3.0 
1.7 
1.9 
2.3 
2.4 
3.0 
5.0 
7.3 



Negroes 

30.4 
18.9 
20.3 
23.9 
24.6 
32.3 
52.7 
74.5 



Abstract of the Thirteenth Census, 1910, p. 240. 

It is interesting to note here that ilhteracy among Negro children 
10 to 14 years of age is but 18.9 per cent and that the rate does not 
rise to that of the group as a whole until the age of 35 years or over, 
and that beyond the age of 45 it is from 50 to 75 per cent. The present 
generation of Negro children is therefore enjoying greatly improved 
conditions and is taking advantage of them. Without further im- 
provement, the next generation will show a reduction of illiteracy to 
approximately 20 per cent. 

The present status of Negro illiterac3^ in the group 10 to 14 years 
of age, however, when compared with the same age group among the 



184 The Annals of the American Academy 

whites is again unfair, in view of the facts revealed by the figures of 
school attendance, so far as these figures may be taken as an index 
of school facilities afforded. The percentage of school attendance of 
native white children of native parentage in the United States between 
the ages of 6 to 20 is 65.9 per cent in urban communities, and 67.3 
per cent in rural districts. The same respective figures for colored 
children are 51.7 per cent and 46.1 per cent. In the south Atlantic 
division, which is typical of the South in general, the corresponding 
figures for white are: urban, 59.1 per cent; rural, 63.7 per cent; for 
colored, urban 48.9, rural 46.6. If, therefore, the colored children 
had an equal opportunity with the white the difference in illiteracy 
would be still further reduced. 

At the present time and with conditions as they are, the illiteracy 
of Negro children between 10 and 14 years of age is little more than 
that for the country as a whole for that portion of the population 
above 65 years of age, and only a little more than double that of the 
native whites of native parentage above that age. If statistics were 
available, they would doubtless show Negro illiteracy among the 
early age groups in the urban North to be somewhat below that of 
the older age groups in the native white population in the rural 
South. 

Summarizing, a few generalizations may be made: 

1. Negro illiteracy throughout the United States and in every 
geographic division is greatly in excess of that in the white portion of 
population. 

2. When due allowance is made for differences of distribution in 
which the vast majority of Negroes share the inadequate facilities for 
education of the minority of the whites, the disparity in the amount 
of illiteracy is partially explained without reference to racial qualities 
or ability. 

3. The rapid reduction of Negro illiteracy from something above 
95 per cent to 30.4 per cent in fifty years of freedom, and constituting 
the largest element in the diminution of illiteracy for the United 
States as a whole, is a phenomenal race achievement. 

4. Continuous and rapid reduction in Negro illiteracy is likely 
to continue through improvement of facilities. To the extent to which 
an equality of opportunity North and South, urban and rural, is 
secured will the rate of Negro illiteracy decline until it tends to 
approximate that of the white. 



Nec.ro Illiteracy in the United States 185 

5. If achievement is measured, not in terms of actual accomplish- 
ment, but in the amount of progress made from the point of departure, 
then there may be little ground for complaint or discouragement, but 
rather a just feeling of satisfaction and of optimism in the degree of 
attainment toward ability to read and write accomplished by the 
Negro race in the United States in its fifty years of freedom. 



NEGRO CHILDREN IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
OF PHILADELPHIA^ 

By Howard W. Odum, 
University of Georgia, Athens, Ga. 

That the problem of educating Negro children is not limited in 
its application to any community, or to the North or South, is now a 
well recognized fact. That it is of special importance in the study 
of American erlucation; is closely related to many problems of public 
policy; and bears directly upon the theory and practice of efficiency 
in national life, as well as upon race improvement, is not always so 
well recognized. 

At the invitation and with the cooperation of Dr. Martin G. 
Brumbaugh, superintendent of the city public schools, this study was 
undertaken by the Philadelphia Bureau of Municipal Research with a 
view to assisting in the solution of a difficult problem of school admin- 
istration and efficiency. The inquiry was pursued on the assumption 
that little could be done unless the subject was approached strictly 
from the objective viewpoint and prosecuted with as much thorough- 
ness as possible. At the same time it is a practical study and the 
time and facilities for making exhaustive experiments and anthropo- 
metric measurement were very limited. It is urged, therefore, that all 
facts and conclusions herein presented shall be interpreted accord- 
ingly, and that all statements concerning Negro children be inter- 
preted as applying to Negro children as they are today, the product 
of inheritance and environment. 

This paper is, further, a summary of a large body of information. 
In order to employ summaries with exactness it is necessary to inter- 
pret totals, averages, and central tendencies in their relation to the 
frequencies upon which they are based. It is possible, for instance, 
to have two groups of a thousand children each, conforming alike to 
average measurements, and at the same time differing so radically 
in their conformation to normal distribution as to be almost wholly 

1 Summary from a special study of Negro children in the public schools 
of Philadelphia made for the Philadelphia Bureau of Municipal Research. 

186 



Negro Children in Public Schools 187 

unlike. Such a series of variations not infrequently occurs in exactly 
those traits, a knowledge of which is essential to an understanding of 
the groups. In attempting to form conclusions from a general sum- 
mary, therefore, it is most important to keep these facts in mind. 
And while it is possible to summarize to a large extent the principal 
facts brought out in this study of Negro children in the schools, it 
is also easy to neglect fundamental minor facts that may be shown 
only in the detailed units of scope and method. With these quali- 
fications the following summary ought to be of value. 

The scope of this inquiry included all the elementary schools of 
the Philadelphia public school system as organized during the months 
from September, 1910, to January, 1911, the information concerning 
enrollment and attendance being obtained at that time, and the 
experiments being made during that period and subsequently. The 
total number of pupils enrolled in the elementary schools was 154,125, 
of which 8,192 or 5.3 per cent were Negro children. This enrollment 
was made from a total number of enumerable children of 241,623, of 
whom 9,758 were Negroes; and they were enrolled in the 238 ele- 
mentary schools with their several annexes. The larger study thus 
includes this total number and the larger comparisons are made 
between total children and Negro children. The larger group is 
again variously divided. There were two principal groups of Negro 
children, those who attend mixed schools for whites and Negroes, and 
those who attend schools in which only Negrc children are enrolled. 
Again, smaller groups are made the basis of special experiments and 
minute study, the effort being to approximate in all cases, so far as 
possible, similar conditions for both white and Negro children, with 
experiments made uniformly by the same person. 

Of the total Negro pupils enrolled in the public elementary schools 
approximately one-fourth (23.7 per cent) were enrolled in nine sepa- 
rate Negro schools, the remaining three-fourths (76.3 per cent) being 
enrolled largely in 15 per cent of the total schools of the city. Thirty- 
one per cent of the schools of the city have no Negro pupils enrolled, 
23 per cent have less than 1 per cent, and 20 per cent have between 
1 and 5 per cent. The problem of the Negro child is thus seen to 
rest chiefly upon a relatively small proportion of the schools, and its 
intensity varies widely in the various schools. Again, the problem 
varies in the several school districts, being largest in the 4th district 
where 12 per cent of the pupils enrolled are Negroes, comprising 



188 The Annals of the American Academy 

20 per cent of the total Negro school population, although the dis- 
trict has less than one-tenth of the whole school population. And 
similarly for other districts. Negro children constitute 5,3 per cent 
of all children enrolled in the city, but constitute only 4 per cent of 
all children enumerated in the city, thus showing a higher rate of 
em'ollment than white children. The Negroes have a larger propor- 
tion of females in schools than the whites, the former showing only 
50.4 per cent girls while the Negroes show 52.8 per cent. The increase 
of Negro children in the proportion of total population for the last five 
years was 0.5 per cent and the distribution of these children in the 
different wards shows a larger scope of the race school problem. The 
shifting from ward to ward in the school population was a little more 
than twice as large for the Negroes as for the whites. The proportion 
of the enumerated whites and Negroes enrolled is about the same but 
more Negro children remain in schools from fourteen to sixteen years 
of age. The Negro children show 72.4 per cent of all Negro children 
from fourteen to sixteen years of age enrolled, and the whites only 
59.7 per cent. Ninety-five per cent of Negro children are enrolled 
in public schools and only 74 per cent of white children. The Negro 
children constitute, therefore, preeminently a public problem. 

Further study of distribution shows that a much larger propor- 
tion of Negro pupils are enrolled in the primary grades than are white 
pupils. Of the Negro pupils enrolled 77.8 per cent, and of the white 
pupils 67.8 per cent are enrolled in primary grades. Again, 4 per cent 
of the white children reach the eighth grade as opposed to 2.3 per 
cent of the Negro children. Of the white girls enrolled 33.1 per cent, 
and of the white boys 31 per cent are enrolled in grammar grades. 
Compare this with 25.9 per cent of Negro girls and 17.4 per cent of 
Negro boys enrolled in grammar grades. Negro girls thus remain in 
school considerably longer than Negro boys. The separate Negro 
schools enroll pupils chiefly in the primary grades, only 9 per cent 
being enrolled in the grammar grades. The Negro pupils in the higher 
grades are thus distributed throughout the mixed schools. While a 
smaller number of Negro pupils reach the higher grades than the 
whites, a larger number remain in school to a later age. Only 2.6 
per cent of the total pupils of the city remain in school above fourteen 
years of age, the normal age for the completion of the eighth grade, 
Avhile 8.6 per cent of the Negroes enrolled are over fourteen yeavs of 
age. Thus, a large part of the white children finish under age and a 



Negro Children in Public Schools 



189 



large part of Negro children remain in school beyond the normal age. 
The Negro girls in school are older than the Negro boys. Among 
both white and Negro pupils the largest nmnber is enrolled at the age 
of ten years. But the proportion of Negro children at the ages of 
five, six and seven is much smaller; and at the ages of fourteen, fifteen, 
sixteen and seventeen much larger than among the whites. The ages 
of Negro pupils in separate Negro schools approximate those of the 
white children. The total Negro children extend in appreciable num- 
bers from six to eighteen years and the whites from six to sixteen. 
The average age for all children in the schools is 9.3 years and for all 
Negro children is 10.6 years. That is, the Negroes average a year and 
a third older than the white children. The differences between the 
average ages of white and Negro pupils is larger than this in the ma- 
jority of grades. The following table shows the average age for each 
grade and the difference between white and Negro pupils. 



Average Age of Pupils 


BY Grades 




Grade 


White children 


Negro children 


Difference 


First 


6.7 
8.2 
9.5 
10.7 
11.6 
12.4 
13.2 
13.9 


7.6 

9.4 
10.9 
12.1 
13.1 
13.9 
14.6 
15.5 


0.9 


Sftoond 


1.2 


Third 


1.4 


Fourth 


1.4 


Fifth 


1.5 


Sixth 


1.5 


Seventli 


1.4 


Eighth 


1.6 







The average of Negro pupils in each grade is again compared 
Avdth the normal age. 

"Normal" Age and Average Age of Negro Children 



Grade 



First. . . 
Second. 
Third... 
Fourth. 
Fifth... 
Sixth. . . 
Seventh 
Eighth . 



Normal age 



7 
8 
9 
10 
11 
12 
13 
14 



ige age ol 
ro pupils 


Amount retarded 


7.6 


0.6 


9.4 


1.4 


10.9 


1.9 


12.1 


2.1 


13.1 


2.1 


13.9 


1.9 


14.6 


1.6 


15.5 


1.5 



190 



The Annals of the American Academy 



Whereas the Negro pupils in the eight grade are a year and half 
over age, the white pupils finish a little under the normal age. Again, 
in the 'third, fourth, fifth and sixth grades the Negro pupils average 
two years older than the normal age, and except in the first grade 
they average a year and a half or more above the normal age. The 
average for the Negro children in the sixth grade is exactly the same 
as that for the white children in the eighth grade. 

The Negro children also show a larger average deviation than 
the white. The following table gives the further comparison between 
white and Negro children. 



Grade 



First. . . 

Second. 

Third... 

Fourth. 

Fifth... 

Sixth... 

Seventh 

Eighth. 



WHITE PUPILS 



Number 
of pupils 



29,220 
25,378 
24,153 
21,685 
18,438 
13,516 
9,196 
6,869 



Average 
age 



6.7 

8.2 
9.5 
10,7 
11.6 
12.4 
13.2 
13.9 



Average 
deviation 



0.8 
0.9 
1,0 
1.1 
1,0 
0.9 
0,9 
0,9 



NEGHO PUPILS 



Number 
of pupils 



1,855 

1,648 

1,475 

1,095 

749 

500 

308 

186 



Average 
age 



7.6 
9.4 
10.9 
12.1 
13.1 
13.9 
14.6 
15.5 



Average 
deviation 



1.1 

1.2 
1.3 
1,2 
1,1 
1,0 
1,0 
1.0 



From the study of these ages of white and Negro children in 
the grades it will be seen that there is a high percentage of retardation 
among Negro children. A summary of the detailed figures of age and 
grade classifications shows the following facts. With both white and 
Negro children the highest percentage of pupils above normal age is 
in the fifth grade. With both white and Negro children the largest 
percentage below normal age is in the first grade. With white children 
the highest percentage of normal age children is in the seventh grade 
while with the Negro children it is in the first grade. 

The total Negro pupils show 71.9 per cent retardation, and the 
white children 38.9 per cent according to the accepted standard which 
allows one year normal age for each grade. According to a more 
accurate standard, allowing three years range for each grade, the 
Negroes show 48.6 per cent retardation and the whites 18.6 per cent. 
Again, the Negro pupils have 23.2 per cent retarded one year, 21.9 
per cent retarded two years, 14.6 per cent retarded three years, 7.9 
per cent retarded four years, 3.6 per cent retarded five years, 1.4 



Negro Children in Public Schools 191 

per cent retarded six years and 0.2 per cent retarded seven years. 
The white pupils show 20.2 per cent retarded one year, 11.2 per cent 
retarded two years, 4.8 per cent retarded three years, 1.7 per cent 
four years, and 0.5 per cent five years. With both white and Negro 
children the boys show slightly more retardation than the girls. 
Negro pupils in separate Negro schools have only 66.7 per cent 
retardation as opposed to 73.7 per cent among Negro children in 
mixed schools. The total pupils of all schools show 30.6 per cent 
below normal age and 30.5 per cent normal, while Negro children 
show only 8.2 per cent below normal age and 19.9 per cent normal. 
The 72 per cent retarded Negro pupils of Philadelphia may be com- 
pared with the Negro pupils of Memphis, 75.8 per cent, and with 
3,670 Philadelphia pupils with defective vision having 75 per cent 
retardation. 

In high schools Negro boys are retarded 60 per cent and Negro 
girls 74.6 per cent; white boys are retarded 27.4 per cent and white 
girls 24.1 per cent. The number of Negro pupils in the high school, 
however, is small. Among the whites there are in the high school 
about sixty pupils to every 1,000 enrolled in elementary schools, while 
for the Negroes there are only twenty-one or about 2 per cent. 
Again, for each 1,000 Negro boys there are ten in the high school 
and for Negro girls thirty, while for white boys there are sixty-one, 
and for white girlsfifty-seven to each 1,000 in the elementary schools. 

Ayres shows that attendance is an important factor in retarda- 
tion. Having shown the high percentage of retardation among Negro 
children, it is necessary to inquire into their attendance and promo- 
tion. The average attendance for five years among the total pupils 
of the city was 87.7 per cent and for Negro pupils in the Negro schools 
78.8 per cent, a difference amounting to 10 per cent of the total average 
attendance. The irregularity of the Negro pupils' attendance is made 
up of lateness, days missed, and late entrance or early leaving school. 
The white children show only 0.7 per cent of lateness and the Negro 
pupils show 3.1 per cent or more than four times that of the white 
children. In no case do Negro schools have as high record of attend- 
ance as the average whites. In no case do the white schools show as 
low percentage of attendance as the average Negro schools. Likewise, 
in no case do the Negro schools approximate so low a percentage of 
lateness as the average whites, and in no case do the white schools show 
so high a percentage of lateness as the average Negro schools. Among 



192 The Annals of the American Academy 

the total pupils of the city 3.3 per cent were reported as remaining in 
their grades more than twenty months and 0.8 per cent more than 
thirty months. Among Negro pupils in Negro schools 9.5 per cent 
remained in their grades more than twenty months and 1.2 per cent 
more than thirty months. Among Negro pupils in mixed schools 9.2 
per cent remained in grades more than twenty months, and 1.1 per 
cent more than thirty months. That is, three times as many Negro 
pupils as whites remain in grades more than twenty months, and six 
times as many more than thirty months. Of Negro pupils in mixed 
schools 19 per cent remained in grades fifteen months or more and 
some 25 per cent repeated grades to some extent. 

Ayres points out the fact that bad effects of low percentages of 
promotion increase with astonishing rapidity as each successive de- 
crease of the percentage promoted is made. Thus a difference of 10 per 
cent in the percentage of promotions is much more than twice as much 
as 5 per cent. He shows that a difference of seven points in the per- 
centage of promotions, for instance, may cause a difference in the 
number of pupils with clear records, in each 1,000 pupils, of 220. That 
is, with a special average of 90 per cent promotions in a case where 
no pupils die or drop out of school, 480 pupils out of every 1,000 reach 
the eighth grade without failing, while with an average of 83 per cent 
only 260 reach the eighth grade without failing. According to this 
standard of reckoning among the total pupils of the Philadelphia 
schools 240 pupils of every 1,000 will reach the eighth grade without 
failure, and among the Negro pupils only about 50 would reach the 
eighth grade without failure. That is, the percentage of promotions 
among the total pupils of the schools is 81.8 and among Negro pupils 
in Negro schools 70.6 and among Negroes in mixed schools 71 per 
cent. There is, thus, a large difference between the reports of white 
and Negro children, but little difference between the two groups of 
Negroes. The largest difference between promotions by grades be- 
tween white and Negro children are in the first, fifth and seventh 
grades. Among Negro pupils there is little variation in the different 
ages of percentages of promotions, and little variation between boys 
and girls. 

The average markings by teachers reported for Negro children 
were 70; 69 for boys and 71 for girls. However, the range was wide, 
there being some 5 per cent with grades of ninety, and 25 per cent 
Avith grades of eighty. Of the pupils having grades of ninety, the 



Negro Children in Public Schools 193 

earlier grades have a slightly larger proportion than the later grades 
and the girls excel the boys by a small margin. Again, 4.9 per cent 
of Negro pupils in mixed schools were reported at the head of their 
class, 20.9 per cent were in the upper quarter, 39.6 per cent were in 
the middle half, and 34.3 per cent were in the lower quarter. In the 
numerical rating pupils below the age of thirteen furnish the largest 
proportion of grades above seventy and likewise higher averages, and 
the older pupils show a consequent smaller proportion of higher 
grades, and lower averages. The largest proportion of nineties is 
found at eight and nine years and the largest proportion of eighties 
at eleven years. The highest average grade, seventy-two, is found 
at eleven years, and the averages vary from seventy at seven years of 
age to sixty-two at seventeen. The girls show a slightly better record 
in both averages and the number having grades of eighty and ninety. 

According to the teachers, Negro children find most difficulty in 
arithmetic and studies that require compound concentration and pro- 
longed application. Seventy per cent of Negro pupils reported show 
their poorest work in arithmetic, as compared with 52 per cent of 
white children. Language, after arithmetic, furnishes the greatest 
difficulty. Reading and spelling offer comparatively the least diffi- 
culties to Negro pupils. Among Negro pupils in mixed schools 32.7 
per cent are reported unsatisfactory in deportment and among white 
pupils 22.9 per cent. Of the Negro children having a grade of ninety 
or being at the head of their classes, only 14.3 per cent were reported 
unsatisfactory while more than 40 per cent had excellent deportment. 
Likewise the deportment of all Negro children having better marks 
and standing in the upper quarter of class work was consistently 
better. Again, Negro children coming from better and average homes 
have better deportment than those coming from the poorest homes. 
Likewise the poorest class of Negro homes furnish only a small pro- 
portion of pupils having the highest grades. Negro girls have slightly 
better deportment than Negro boys. There is thus a decided positive 
correlation between deportment and good work. The offenses charged 
to Negro pupils are many and the correction and the effective train- 
ing of colored pupils offer a large field for constructive work. 

Before forming conclusions from the above facts it is necessary 
to inquire into their causes and meaning. It should be remembered, 
too, that there are many exceptions to the totals and averages there 
reported. That is, in every phase of school life the Negro children 



194 The Annals of the American Academy 

show a tendency to reach or excel the median of the white children, 
and the range from lowest to highest among Negro children tends to 
become wider than among the whites. Before inquiring into the 
specific race differences, as reflected in Negro children and white 
children, it will be necessary to analyze as many as possible of the 
environmental influences that tend to change the records made in 
school. The correlation of the home and social environment, together 
with present racial influences, with school records will indicate the 
source of many difficulties which the Negro children have to face. 
When these influences have been estimated it will be possible to seek 
remedies for defects which exist under the present conditions and to 
estimate the extent to which permanent changes are necessary and 
upon what basis they may be advocated. 

The grade distribution, retardation and promotion of pupils are 
so inter-related that their causes may be considered together. The 
prevailing practice among children in all public schools tends to cause 
them to drop out of the elementary schools at fourteen years of age. 
There are two main causes for this. Fourteen years is the normal age 
for the completion of the eighth grade, whence children either drop 
out of school altogether or enter the high school. But if they have not 
finished at that age the compulsory education requirements permit 
them to drop out of school at that time. Among the total children 
of the public schools only 2.6 per cent remain to a later age than four- 
teen years. Among Negro children 8.6 per cent are above fourteen 
3^ears of age. Now it has been seen that the average age for total 
children in the eighth grade was exactly the same as for Negro children 
in the sixth grade. This age is 13.9 years. The Negro pupil must 
either drop out at the sixth grade or remain in school to an aver- 
age age of 15.6 years. This partly explains the smaller number 
who reach the eighth grade among Negro children and likewise the 
reasons for remaining in school longer than the whites. That is, if 
the Negro children dropped out at the age of fourteen as do the whites, 
there would be no seventh and eighth grade pupils. Now the Negro 
pupils do tend to drop out, but not all, hence the few who remain to the 
eighth grade. Again, there is often less incentive offered Negro chil- 
dren to drop out than white children, owing to the limited field of work 
open to Negro boys and girls at that age. Of course, the question of 
the aptitude of Negro pupils to do the work of higher grades is an 
important factor as will be seen, but all should not be ascribed to 



Negro Children in Public Schools 195 

this. It is a common fallacy to assume that because Negro pupils 
are not enrolled in the higher grades, they therefore cannot do the 
work given in those grades. In addition to the causes which make 
them retarded and thus cause the elimination by age, there are other 
factors than those suggested. The separate schools for Negro chil- 
dren offer chiefly work in the primary grades, while the grammar 
grade Negro pupils attend the mixed schools entirely. It has been 
shown in some specific instances that Negro pupils attending crowded 
classes in the upper grades and competing with white children, with 
what they feel to be unequal odds, owing to their higher age, and dis- 
crimination on the part of teachers and pupils, have preferred to leave 
school rather than attend under these circumstances. And unless 
there are home influences or age requirements to keep them in school 
the elimination is easy. This element enters to some extent in all 
mixed schools and it is not possible to analyze influences to fix the 
exact amount. 

But assuming, first, that the age elimination is largest, it is neces- 
sary to inquire into the causes of retardation. This in turn will have 
a direct relation to the promotion of Negro pupils and hence will 
throw light on the question of their aptitude to do the work of higher 
grades. It was shown that the Negro pupils approximate twice as 
much retardation as the white pupils according to the accepted stand- 
ard of normal age and that according to a more refined standard they 
approximate three times as much. Further it was shown that in the 
majority of grades the Negro pupils are consistently two years behind 
the white children. Is this retardation due to lack of progress, as is 
commonly assumed? Or is the slow progress due entirely to lack of 
aptitude for school work? It was shown in the inquiry that more 
than one-third of the pupils in the schools were born outside of Phila- 
delphia and largely in the Southern States, especially Virginia and 
Maryland. Those who thus enter begin late, first because they are 
accustomed to less schooling in their home communities, and secondly, 
because the change of residence causes uniform loss of attendance in 
every school. The retardation begun is accelerated in the adaptation to 
new conditions and the result is disastrous to progress and deportment. 
Again, the small number of Negro children in school at the ages of 
sLx^and seven shows that the Negro pupils uniformly enter school 
later than white children. In addition to the causes already men- 
tioned, there are various other influences, home conditions and shift- 



196 The Annals of the American Academy 

ing of population, which tend to contribute towards the result. Thus 
the element of population is large in the process of ehmination. 
Again, the death rate for Negro children is higher than for white 
children, and consequently the elimination due to this is larger. While 
this would seem to be overbalanced by the influx of new children, it 
has been shown that these children only add to the amount of retar- 
dation which accelerates elimination. 

It has been shown that the Negro children move from ward to 
ward and hence change schools more frequently than do white chil- 
dren. In the intervals time is lost and work is hindered. To poor 
attendance is ascribed a large part of the failure of Negro children. 
Poor attendance has a number of contributing causes. A review of the 
facts as reported by the trained nurses shows that the Negro children 
are often left to do as they wish. More than 60 per cent of the mothers 
work away from home. The children oversleep, or choose their own 
procedure. They are not infrequently required to run errands, and 
assist at home before going to school, or for parts of the day. They 
are hindered by neglect and carelessness, by interference, and by 
physical results of environment. The extent to which this is true has 
been pointed out. Poor attendance and a high percentage of lateness 
affect the quality of work seriously. But home conditions affect not 
only attendance and lateness but also the actual work in school. The 
quantity and quality of food and the manner of eating have been 
shown to be irregular and improper. The Negro children sleep 
irregularly and insufficiently. They use intoxicants to an unusual 
extent. They are affected to an unusually large extent with minor 
bodily afflictions, especially colds, head and throat troubles. Their 
conditions of bodily hygiene are bad. In some instances they are 
poorly clad. Thus the very physical basis of attention is undermined. 

Again in school, partly as a result of the facts mentioned, partly 
because of innate traits, and partly because of home and race influ- 
ences, the Negro children do not apply themselves to their work. 
Lack of study is often responsible for unsatisfactory work instead 
of inability to succeed in their studies. Especially is this true of their 
home study. There are few incentives to study at home, little favor- 
able influence to promote it, and practically no facilities in the way 
of reading. Again Negro parents are unable to assist their children 
in most cases and are not always disposed to do so. The mothers 
and fathers working out, the promiscuous mingling and visiting, 



Negro Children in Public Schools 197 

moral and other irregularities noted previously — all these contribute 
towards the difficulties in the way of Negro children. 

In this way many other factors might be correlated with the poor 
resulting conditions of Negro children in the schools already enumer- 
ated. Under existing environment the retardation, attendance, pro- 
motions, quality of work and deportment are natural products. In- 
quiry was made into the home conditions of Negro pupils whose 
records were high. This inquiry reported only those pupils about 
whom there was no doubt in their classification. The results showed 
that the poorest homes furnished only a small per cent and that the 
best and average homes furnished about equal proportions. There 
was no verification of the assumption that all bright Negro children 
are mulattoes. 

Some of the causes afTecting the present status of Negro chil- 
dren in the schools have been suggested thus at length. Others 
may be studied from the context. So far as the results of this study 
up to this point are concerned, there is no evidence to show that Negro 
children differ from white children because of race. There is much 
evidence to show that they differ largely — whether because of envi- 
ronment or only in the midst of environment cannot be discussed here. 
It is absolutely necessary, therefore, to report an exhaustive and 
scientific study of more exact measurements before any conclusions 
can be reached in regard to race differences. 

But for the present, neither the causes nor the processes serve 
to change the condition. Whatever they are it has been shown that 
Negro pupils constitute a separate problem of education in the schools 
and it is necessary to interpret the meaning of facts, regardless of 
their causes. Then when the more exact causes have been determined 
it will be possible to know the more exact significance of the facts 
reported. 

It will be seen that the problem of the Negro child has two distinct 
larger meanings. The first is the effect of the present conditions 
upon the successful application of the present school system to Negro 
children. Rated according to the usual standards, it has been shown 
that the schools are not successful in teaching Negro children. These 
children are not receiving education approximating their needs either 
for liberal training or industrial work. It is scarcely possible to place 
the blame entirely upon the Negro children. The second meaning of 
the facts has to do with the effect which this slow rate of progress 



198 The Annals of the American Academy 

and over-age has upon the white children, involving the working 
efficiency of the whole school system. If the eight thousand Negro 
pupils in the schools, of whom more than 5,500 are retarded, were all 
grouped together, the problem would involve only about that number 
of retarded pupils. But these Negro children are enrolled in many 
schools involving primarily more than 60,000 children. Because of 
the dull Negro pupils in each class, the teachers claim that the entire 
class must lose much time and thus the rate of progress and the 
degree of efficiency are lowered. This repetition of time on the part 
of the teachers varies from almost 40 per cent in the more difficult 
subjects to a much smaller amount in easier studies. If this repeated 
teaching is not given, the Negro pupils suffer and thus add to the 
already high percentage of retardation. Unfortunately, there is no 
way of measuring this loss and subtracting the degree of similar 
losses in the same classes because of dull white pupils, in order to 
ascertain the median generic loss caused by the retarded Negro pupils 
in each subject and grade. 

It is possible, however, to estimate the number of years lost by 
Negro pupils in the aggregate. That is, the number of years repre- 
sented in the total over-age pupils is a measure of ultimate loss which 
the Negro pupils sustain through elimination and retardation. This 
loss is not always a loss in expense to the city by any means, for, as 
has been shown, late entrance accounts for much of the Negro pupils' 
retardation. It does in every case, however, show the relation be- 
tween the over-age pupil and the normal pupil, and some inference 
may be drawn as to the extent to which normal pupils are hindered 
and loss of time incurred. 

If the aggregate years of pupils over-age be calculated for the 
white children, there would be 87,242 such years or approximately 
six months for each child reported. If the same aggregate for Negro 
children be calculated there would be 13,842 such years or approxi- 
mately twenty-one months for each Negro enrolled. That is, of the 
total years above normal age for all children, 101,084, Negro children 
have more than 12 per cent. These years of retardation may not cost 
a large amount of money, but tax the efficiency of the schools. This 
cost to efficiency, caused by the retarded pupils, is further intensified 
by the prejudice existing in the minds of white pupils and teachers. 
This difficulty may be understood when it is remembered that the 
white teachers are teaching day after day a group of children in 



Negro Children in Public Schools 199 

whom the majority can see few strong points. The full meaning of 
the present situation cannot be discussed adequately until the studies 
of exact measurements, comparisons of Negro children in mixed and 
separate schools according to uniform school tests, and comparison 
of teaching efficiency in the white and Negro schools have been 
reported. Meantime it is well to proceed with the second division 
of this inquiry. 

Tests of General Intelligence and Mental Processes 

It is perhaps an accepted theory that the influence of environ- 
ment is much more powerful in the displacement of an individual or 
group downward than upward. That is, unfavorable environment 
may easily retard or warp growth, and take away from their highest 
possibilities the energies that make a high mental or physical develop- 
ment possible. While favorable envirormient, likewise, has its strong 
influence in developing mental and physical energies to their natural 
consummation, it can rarely raise them beyond their natural abilities. 
Suppose a group of individuals of median abilities be divided into two 
parts, the one placed under favorable environment, the other under 
unfavorable enviromnent. The part living under unfavorable envi- 
ronment will furnish a larger proportion of the exceptionally inferior, 
than will the other group of exceptionally superior ; or to consider the 
individual, a person of only the median ability cannot be raised to 
the rank of the most exceptional superiority by any environment, 
whereas, the individual of median ability may often be reduced by 
environment to the most exceptionally inferior.^ Now this fact is of 
special significance in the study of Negro children. On the one hand 
it lends support to the conclusion that the failure and defects of Negro 
children may be due only to environment which is unfavorable to 
their highest development. There is, thus far, no evidence to contra- 
dict such a conclusion, while there is much evidence to show that the 
envirormient under which Negro children have grown is unfavorable 
to the development of the mental abilities commonly accepted as 
superior. But on the other hand, it may lend evidence to the conclu- 
sion that no environment, however good and however much of favor- 
able training and positive impetus it might offer, can raise individuals 
of only moderate efficiency and intelligence to a station of superiority, 

2 See Thorndike's Educational Psychology, p. 210. 



200 The Annals of the American Academy 

Now it has been shown that Negro children show a large proportion 
of inferior inefficiency in certain accepted fields according to certain 
accepted methods of rating. They also show a certain proportion of 
apparently exceptional superiority in certain processes and activities. 
Here again the results indicate, on the one hand, that Negro children 
conform to the conditions in which environment is the chief factor 
in determining the results; and likewise, owing to admixture of white 
blood, and owing to the inaccuracy of measurements, there is no evi- 
dence to show that they do not appear to furnish only mediocre 
native abilities at the best. With only this knowledge at hand, it is 
absolutely impossible to say how much and of what sort are the innate 
differences between white and Negro children. So far the inferiority 
of Negro children in school efficiency has been reported only in terms 
of very general estimates and the study and correlation of even imme- 
diate environment showed sufficient influence to bring about present 
conditions. But no tests of efficiency in specific processes have been 
made and no relative standard of intelligence established. It is 
necessary, therefore, to measure with methods of scientific precision 
the mental and physical traits of the median group of Negro children 
and to report the results in terms of objective units. These must then 
be compared with similar exact measurements of the median white 
children. Next the exceptionally inferior and the exceptionally 
superior children must be studied and the nature of the basis of 
their inferior and superior qualities be ascertained so far as is possible. 
These measurements must include both mental and physical processes 
and their combinations and so far as possible the total intelligence of 
the children. When this has been done it will be possible to rate 
any differences that may be of long standing, inherent, if not inher- 
ited, and upon this base a knowledge of the fundamental needs and 
perhaps possiblities of the children may be built. Upon this basis, 
too, may be begun studies of actual racial psychology and important 
aspects of American education. 

First, it is necessary to study mental processes. The list of im- 
portant aspects of total mentality which might be tested, is almost 
unlimited. However, certain generally accepted fundamental proc- 
esses may be tested and their quickness, breadth, intensity and 
strength ascertained. The physical basis and motor processes ma}' 
then be studied and correlated. But as a preparation for such inquiry 
let the total intelligence of the children be measured according to 



Negro Children in Public Schools . 201 

some accepted and approximately accurate standard. Such a stand- 
ard should be apart from knowledge gained primarily in the school 
room, and should test only general intelligence. Such a test is found 
in the Binet measuring scale of intelligence which furnishes a simple 
but accurate test for each year up to fourteen years of age. The test 
for the fourteenth year was entirely impractical but the other tests 
were used with every precaution for accuracy. The method was the 
same as that used by Goddard and the tests for Negro children 
accordingly compared with those made upon whites by Dr. Goddard.^ 
The number of white children tested by Dr. Goddard was 1,547 and 
the number of Negro children tested in this study was 300, the num- 
ber being unavoidably limited, but the selection a fair chance selection. 

Of these numbers the white children showed 21 per cent testing 
one year above age and 20 per cent testing one year below age, while 
the Negro children show only 5 per cent one year above age and 26 per 
cent one year below age. Negro children show 6.3 per cent feeble- 
minded as compared with 3.9 per cent white children. The figures 
for the white children conform closely to a normal curve while the 
upper half of the curve for Negro children is almost entirely wanting. 
The median for the white children falls within the "at age" period 
while with Negro children it falls decidedly at "one year below age." 
Taking three years, one above age, at age, and one below age, as 
"normal" and plotting the curves the result is almost identical to 
the similar curve plotted for normal, below and above normal age as 
indicated in the grade distribution already described, indicating that 
the school grading and the Binet tests coincide so far as the classifi- 
cation of Negro children is concerned. 

The total averages, however, do not represent the tests accu- 
rately in the case of Negro children. The Negro children at five, 
six and seven j^ears test about normal, while the older children test 
far below normal. Those at five years test 5.1 years, while the fifteen 
year old children tested only 11.3 years. The average thus goes from 
0.1 year above to 3.7 years below age. 

The following table gives the average intelligence for each year 
and the number tested. 

Here again it will be necessary to have a larger number of tests, 
and also to make other tests in order to ascertain the accuracy of the 
tests for the older children. 

'See The Training School, January, 1910, and 1911. 



202 



The Annals of the American Academy 



Further detailed study of the tests for each year reveals other 
important considerations. The tests for the sixth year were answered 
by a larger per cent of Negro children of that age than of white chil- 
dren. In the seventh year Negro children were approximately as good 
as the white, and thence they decrease to the thirteenth year regularly 
until at that age no Negro children thirteen years of age passed the 
test. In only the sixth and seventh years could more than 50 per cent 
of the Negro children pass the test for their ages so that the question 
is raised as to whether the tests are not misplaced in this instance 
and whether it is quite fair to use the same standards with Negro 
children as with white children. 

A second general test was given to supplement the Binet tests 
with better results. The completion method of Ebbinghaus was used 



Average Intelligence of Negro Children 



Age 


Number of pupils 


Average age by Binet 
tests 


Average amount 
backward (years) 


5 


10 


5.1 


0.1 (above) 


6 


33 


5.6 


0.4 


7 


42 


6.7 


0.3 


8 


45 


7.3 


0.7 


9 


36 


7.2 


1.8 


10 


37 


8.6 


1.4 


11 


33 


9.5 


1.5 


12 


20 


10.5 


1.5 


13 


23 


10.4 


2.6 


14 


13 


10.7 


3.3 


15 


8 


11.3 


3.7 



with a view to testing children on their ability "to combine fragments 
or isolated sections into a meaningful whole."^ The test was given 
to white and Negro children from eleven to fourteen years of age. 
The text contained 93 elisions. The average number correct for the 
white children was 56.4 and for the Negro children 47.5. Ten per 
cent of the white children returned incoherent completions and 35 
per cent of the Negro children. Thirty-five per cent of Negro chil- 
dren made completion by phrase only as opposed to 10.8 per cent of 
white children. The mode for white children ranged from fifty to 
seventy and for Negro children from forty to fifty. 

*The test is given in Whipple's Manual of Mental and Physical Tests. 



Negro Children in Public Schools 203 

Next ca,me the tests for "single traits," the first of which was 
Thorndike's "A" test for simple perception, the results being graded 
according to the number of "A's" marked regardless of the number 
omitted. Three hundred and ten white children and 275 Negro 
children were tested with the result that Negro children showed a 
higher average of performance and a wider range of variability, the 
Negro children marking an average of 21.9 and the white children 
19.3 while the average deviation for the Negroes was 6.9 and for the 
whites 4.2. The curve for the white children tends to conform to a 
normal curve of distribution while that for the Negro children is flat 
and irregular. 

The next test given was Thorndike's "A-t" test for association 
of ideas, thus taking one step more. The same number of children 
were tested with the result that white and Negro children are approx- 
imately equal in average performance but Negro children again show 
larger deviations. The average performance of white children was 
16.9 and for Negro children 16.6 and the deviations being 3.7 and 4.2 
respectively. Here again the curve for white children conforms more 
closely to the normal distribution, the whites excelling in the mode and 
average and the Negroes in variability and range. 

The next test added to association of ideas and perception, 
controlled association as suggested in Thorndike's "opposites" test. 
Here the difference between the two groups was much larger, the 
average for the whites being 13.2 and for the Negroes 10.5, and 
still the deviation for the Negroes was 4.4 as opposed to 3.6 for the 
whites. The curve for white children tends again to normal while 
that for Negro children is multimodal and very irregular, being 
exactly the opposite of the whites for whom the test was a little 
too easy, it being a little too difficult for completion by the Negro 
children. 

The next test combines association of ideas and controlled asso- 
ciation with some knowledge and facility in spelling as outlmed by 
Thorndike's misspelled word test. In grading according to efficiency 
in marking misspelled words the difference was found to be greater 
than in other tests. The white children have 10.6 per cent who mark 
from 90 to 100 while the Negro children have only 1.5 per cent. The 
white children showed only 1.3 per cent who marked under 20 while 
the Negro children showed 10.8 per cent. The mode for the white 
children was at 80 and for the Negro children at 30. The average for 



204 The Annals of the American Academy 

white children was 69.6 and for Negro children 50.6 while the deviation 
for Negro children was again larger than for white children, and the 
curves are similar to those of other tests. In grading the same test 
according to the number omitted the same results were noted, a 
lower efficiency and larger deviation. 

Thus in these tests ranging from the simplest to more complex 
the Negro children tend to decrease in efficiency as the complexity 
of the process increases, as compared with white children. In the 
first they excel slightly; in the second they almost equal the perform- 
ance of the whites; in the third they fall considerably below and in the 
fourth very much below. In all cases the deviation is considerably larger 
for the Negro children, thus raising very important considerations. 

Conclusion 

Further tests and measurements of white and Negro children 
might have been carried to an almost indefinite extent with profit. 
But the limit of this study, bounded by the facilities at hand, had 
been reached, and sufficient data obtained to permit brief summaries, 
conclusions and discussions of the relative differences between white 
and Negro children in their school environment. 

In considering the data given it must be remembered that they 
apply to Negro children as they are found today, the product of inher- 
itance and environment, and that the question of inherent race traits, 
in the strictly anthropological meaning, is entirely apart from the pres- 
ent discussion. It is hoped that researches into race differences will 
be aided by the facts reported in this study, but that is not the main 
object of this inquiry. If the cumulative influence of immediate and 
remote ancestry on the one hand, and immediate and remote environ- 
ment on the other, has been such as to bring about present conditions, 
it is essential to analyze these conditions and undertake to determine 
what further influences will bring the best results from continuing 
inheritance and environment. There can be no doubt as to the prob- 
lem from the practical viewpoint of efficiency in education or from 
the viewpoint of accepted principles of education, psychology, and 
anthropology. 

It may be repeated that in a problem of such long-developed 
standing and complexitj^, both in itself and in its relation to environ- 
ment, final conclusions cannot be reached at once. Dogmatic asser- 
tions and hasty recommendations should be avoided and the full force 



Negro Children in Public Schools 205 

of study and recommendation be directed toward further research 
and the appUcation of knowledge and means now available. 

With these qualifications in mind, conclusions may be reached 
which will be of value in attempting to solve the pedagogical and 
administrative problems involved and in placing the entire question 
on a scientific basis. The study has shown conclusively that there 
are distinct differences between white and Negro children in all three 
of the aspects studied, namely, environment, school conditions and 
progress, and in mental and physical manifestations. The study of 
home environment shows that Negro children are at a disadvantage, 
in social and moral influences and in actual physical conditions, 
comprising food, drink, sleeping accommodations, and general hygi- 
enic conditions. In addition to the general social influences of crowded 
conditions and lower standards, the children are handicapped by poor 
air, water, food and irregular exercise and rest. Finally they receive 
little intelligent supervision and cooperation at home in maintaining 
a continuous connection with school and mental effort, and when leav- 
ing school face restricted opportunities for obtaining a livelihood. 

The differences in school attendance and progress are equally 
large. Negro children show much greater retardation measured by 
both age and progress; a much lower percentage of attendance and 
higher percentage of irregularity; a lower percentage of promotion 
and a lower average of class standing. Great as these differences 
are, the influence of environment alone seems to be sufficient to 
account for the majority of the results. It appears, therefore, that 
injustice would be done to Negro children if harsh judgment be passed 
upon them because they do not maintain the standard of the white 
children. The fact that the records of a limited number of Negro 
children equal the records of the best white children gives indication 
of larger possibilities. 

But the differences between the two groups do not end with envi- 
ronment and school progress. The exhaustive study of conditions 
of school progress indicated that there were differences in kind as 
well as in amount. The results of the tests, applied uniformly to 
white and Negro children, show that in their manifestation of general 
intelligence, Negro children, after the age of eight years, are behind 
the white children; that in single traits and processes these older 
children differ from the white children materially; that in comparison 
with white children the efficiency of Negro children varies inversely 



206 The Annals of the American Academy 

as the complexity of the process; but that in practically all instances 
the deviations for Negro children are larger than for the white chil- 
dren; and in many cases the individuals among the Negro children 
range as high as those among the white children. The white children 
tend always to conform to a normal curve of distribution, and the 
Negro children tend toward a fiat, irregular, and not infrequently, 
multimodal curve. These facts apply to both normal and backward 
children. 

As far as the data presented show, the differences in physical 
measurement of height, weight, neck and chest measurements, and 
temperature, respiration, and pulse, are much less and show less con- 
sistency in variation, and appear more traceable to the influence of 
immediate environment than do other differences. 

That these facts are significant there can be little doubt. That 
they present certain complex problems is entirely consistent with the 
inevitable results of a long and varied race inheritance combined with 
an equally varjdng environment. If, as Professor Boas concludes, 
"Even granting the greatest possible amount of influence to environ- 
ment, it is readily seen that all the essential traits of men are due 
primarily to heredity"^ and if further "we must conclude that the 
fundamental traits of the mind .... are the more subject 
[than physical traits] to far-reaching changes"^ and "we are neces- 
sarily led to grant also a great plasticity of the mental make-up of 
human types, "^ it would clearly be impossible for the Negro chil- 
dren to show the same manifestations of mental traits as white 
children, after having been under the influence of entirely different 
environments for many generations. 

This conclusion also brings with it a great responsibility. The 
fact that such important differences exist between the white and Negro 
children and that they have arisen naturally through long periods of 
growth in different environment, brings with it an obligation to deter- 
mine the exact nature of the differences, their specific causes, and the 
means by which a new envirormient and method may overcome such 
weaknesses as are found. The fact that the Negro children show great 
variablility in all activities combined with the accepted theory of the 
plasticity of human types, gives indications of great possibilities in 

* The Mind of Primitive Man, p. 70. 

* Changes in Bodily Form of Descendants of Immigrants. 

* Ibid. 



Negro Children in Public Schools 207 

the development of the Negro. But it also characterizes all efforts to 
deny the existence of fundamental differences between the white and 
Negro children as inconsistent and harmful to the development of 
the Negro race, on the one hand, and to the permanent adjustment 
of conditions on the other. 

The importance of these considerations may be emphasized 
further by referring to certain specific results of the study. For in- 
stance, the results of the Binet tests indicated that after the eighth 
year the median Negro child was unable to perform the intellectual 
processes commonly ascribed to a normal white child of that age. 
Apparently the Negro children found it very difficult to go beyond 
their inheritance of simple mental processes and physical growth. But 
they exercise to a high degree of efficiency the simple processes which, 
if coordinated, would lead to a higher degree of general intellectuality. 
Favorable environment can add nothing; it can only develop the qual- 
ities already possessed. If, then, it is possible to know the exact 
defects in development, and the nature of the traits possessed, it will 
be possible to develop the inherent energies and qualities in the right 
channels provided the method of training shall involve sufficient detail 
and extend over sufficient time. Herein lies the great value of defin- 
ing the exact differences between the several groups of children in- 
volved; for in this way only can efficient training for the development 
of native energies be provided. This is the basis of the great advance 
in modern intellectual methods and is entirely in accord with accepted 
anthropological knowledge. 

Responsibility does not end, however, with the effort to provide 
education which will ultimately develop the children into their high- 
est capabilities. The present and immediate future must be provided 
for. The great majority of Negro children not only do not enter the 
high school but also fail to complete the elementary grades. Less 
than 2 per cent of the Negro children of school age reach the eighth 
grade. Furthermore, their training to the period of dropping out of 
school fits them neither for any special work in life nor for competing 
with the more fortunate and better fitted in society at large. The 
opportunities for employment of Negro children thus equipped are 
limited, and they are forced to continue the struggle under even more 
unfavorable conditions. Add to all the inequalities already mentioned 
the fact that the standard of excellence, toward which white and Negro 
children unconsciously strive, is often entirely different. An indi- 



208 The Annals of the American Academy 

vidual among the whites and an individual among the Negroes may 
each measure up to the maximum ideal of his habitual social and 
mental horizon and each deserve 100 per cent credit, and yet the 
objective measure of final achievement may be larger in the one case 
than in the other. What then, can the school and society expect of 
children to whom they give neither special training for life nor equal 
opportunity in the struggle? Here again the basis of improvement 
is found in the exact definition of conditions as they are and a 
recognition of their significance. 

It follows that from the community standpoint an effort should 
be made not only to provide proper education and vocational training 
and guidance, but the present unfavorable conditions should be so 
remedied as to influence the smallest possible number of children and 
schools. If the lack of adaptation of children to the curricula is 
costing the community thousands of dollars annually and is at the 
same time a hindrance to school efficiency and progress, and if even 
at this great cost the desired objects are not obtained, can there be 
doubt concerning the need for a more definite program? 



HIGHER EDUCATION OF NEGROES IN THE UNITED 

STATES 

By Edward T. Ware, A.B., 
President, Atlanta University, Atlanta, Ga. 

Since 1823 there have been graduated from American colleges 
about 5,000 Negroes, 1,000 from Northern colleges and 4,000 from 
colleges established especially for Negroes in the South. Probably 
as many as 900 of these college graduates have been women. Only 
34 Negroes were graduated before emancipation and over two-thirds 
of these from Oberlin College. The first three American Negro col- 
lege graduates were from Bowdoin, Middlebury and Ohio. The only 
Negro institution to establish a college department before the edict 
of freedom was Wilberforce University in Ohio. The department 
was established here in 1856, and during its first twenty years eleven 
students were graduated. 

There was no opportunity for higher education of Negroes in 
the South fifty years ago, and little or no incentive to such educa- 
tion anywhere in the nation. In the South the opportunity and 
incentive came speedily in the wake of emancipation and the con- 
sequent campaign of education. This campaign enlisted many earn- 
est and capable young men and women from the North, who devoted 
themselves to the work with a fine missionary zeal. They entered 
the field under the auspices of the American Missionary Association, 
and other missionary societies. By act of Congress of March 3, 
1865, the Freedm.an's Bureau was created. The commissioner was 
authorized to "cooperate with private benevolent associations in 
aid of the freedman." Through this agency great assistance was 
given to the missionar}?^ societies in their work. Under the recon- 
struction governments public school systems for the education of 
the children regardless of race were organized. Whatever the mis- 
takes and shortcomings of the reconstruction governments may have 
been, in the organizing of the public school system at least they 
built wisely and well. 

Through these three agencies — the missionary societies, the fed- 
eral government with its Freedman's Bureau and the state govern- 

209 



210 The Annals of the American Academy 

ments with their public school systems — the work of educating the 
freed Negroes progressed rapidly. Further to aid the work there 
were established two great funds. In 1867 George Peabody gave 
$2,000,000 "for the promotion and encouragement of intellectual, 
moral, or industrial education among the young of the more destitute 
portions of the Southwestern States of our Union." This gift was 
for the benefit of both races. It aided greatly in the development 
and improvement of the state school systems by which the Negro 
children benefited as well as the white children. The other fund 
referred to is the John F. Slater Fund which, when established in 
1882, amounted to $1,000,000. It was placed by Mr. Slater in the 
hands of a board of trust with large discretionary powers, the speci- 
fied object being, "the uplifting of the lately emancipated popula- 
tion of the Southern States, and their posterity, by conferring on 
them the blessings of Christian education." The income is distributed 
annually among the Negro institutions whose work commends itself to 
the trustees of the fund, chiefly to pay the salaries of teachers of man- 
ual arts, and partly to pay the salaries of normal instructors. In his 
letter of gift Mr. Slater suggests as methods of operation "the training 
of teachers from among the people requiring to be taught, if, in the 
opinion of the corporation, by such limited selection the purposes of 
the trust can be best accomphshed; and the encouragement of such 
institutions as are most effectually useful in promoting this training 
of teachers." In providing for the ultimate distribution of the fund 
he says, " I authorize the corporation to apply the capital of the 
fund to the estabhshment of foundations subsidiary to then already 
existing institutions of higher education, in such wise as to make 
the educational advantages of such institutions more freely acces- 
ible to poor students of the colored race." These quotations clearly 
show the interest of Mr. Slater in the higher education of the Negroes. 
The need for "the training of teachers from among the people re- 
quiring to be taught" was one of the great motives which prompted 
the establishing of normal schools and colleges for the Negroes in 
the South 

The other great motive which pron^ted the missionary socie- 
ties to establish colleges for Negroes was simple faith in their possi- 
bilities, and belief that to them as to the white people should be open 
opportunities for the highest human development. Their motive 
was in no sense utilitarian. It was simply Christian. They looked 



Higher Education of the Negroes 211 

upon the Negroes as essentially like white people; what differences 
there were between the two they considered accidental rather than 
vital, the result of circumstance rather than the result of race. Only 
the future could tell what would be the outcome of their venture; 
still they went forward founding institutions "for the Christian edu- 
cation of youth without regard to race, sex or color," and chartered 
to do not only college but university work. This was an expres- 
sion of great faith in the possibilities of the recently emancipated 
slaves. It was truly democratic and truly Christian. These insti- 
tutions were at the beginning, because of the unpreparedness of 
their pupils, devoted largely to work of elementary and secondary 
nature. Their purpose was, however, distinctly for higher educa- 
tion. The names by which they go and the provisions of their 
charters testify to this. 

As stated above, the college department of Wilberforce Univer- 
sity in Ohio was estabhshed in 1856. This is the only institution 
especially for Negroes to establish a college department before 
emancipation. In Lincoln University, Pa., the college department 
was established in 1864. Other institutions established these depart- 
ments as soon as what seemed a sufficient number of their pupils 
were prepared to take up college studies ; Howard University, Wash- 
ington, D. C, in 1868; Straight University, New Orleans, La., in 
1869; Leland University, New Orleans, La., in 1870; Shaw University, 
Raleigh, N. C, in 1870; Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn., in 1871; 
Atlanta University, Atlanta, Ga., in 1872. Before 1880 eleven such 
institutions had established college departments. 

The next twenty years were characterized -by the rapid multi- 
plication of Southern institutions for the higher education of the 
Negroes. During this time there developed two other classes of 
institutions contributing in some measure to higher education: first, 
those organized, officered and supported by the Negroes; secondly, 
those generally known as the state agricultural and mechanical col- 
leges. With the growth of the American Negroes in independence 
and with their practical exclusion from the Southern white churches 
there developed strong Negro churches and independent Negro 
denominations. These churches established schools for their own 
people, under the control of their several denominations. The schools 
often aspired, sometimes with reasonable success, to be institutions 
of higher education. 



212 The Annals of the American Academy 

The agricultural and mechanical colleges for the Negroes are 
institutions supported by the Southern States with that portion of 
their federal land grant funds which they choose to assign to their 
Negro citizens. As the name implies these institutions devote their 
chief energies to industrial and agricultural training. There are also 
courses for training teachers. The Georgia State Industrial College 
for Negro youth is of this type. On June 10 eleven pupils were 
graduated from the academic course and thirty-four from the indus- 
trial departments. The Florida Agricultural and Mechanical Col- 
lege gives the degree of B.S. for those who satisfactorily meet the 
requirements. Some of the Southern States take genuine pride in 
the state institutions for Negroes and make generous appropriations 
for their maintenance. In 1912 the Alabama State Normal School 
received SI 7,000 and the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College 
$12,000 from state appropriations. The presidents and teachers of 
the state schools are Negroes and the salaries paid are frequently 
better than those paid in the institutions supported by Northern 
philanthropy. 

The number of educational enterprises for Southern Negroes 
which are doing at least some work of college grade is so great as 
to be bewildering; and calls for some attempt wisely to discriminate 
among them and to determine the value of the work they are doing. 
Three years ago such an attempt was made by the sociological 
department of Atlanta University in connection with the fifteenth 
annual Atlanta conference for the study of Negro problems. The 
report of this study is published under the title "The College-Bred 
Negro American." More recently, in November and December, 
1912, Mr. W. T. B. Williams, field agent of the John F. Slater Fund, 
made a comparative study of the Negro universities in the South. 
This was published by the Slater Fund as number 13 of their Occa- 
sional Papers. From these sources may be gained valuable infor- 
mation regarding Southern institutions for the higher education of 
the Negroes. The Atlanta study in discussing the Negro colleges 
makes a classification based upon high school work required for 
admission and the number of students enrolled in 1909-1910 in 
classes of college grade, whether in the normal or college departments. 
There were twenty-three institutions which required fourteen units 
of high school work for admission to college classes, the amount of 
work laid down by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement 



Higher Education of the Negroes 213 

of Teaching as necessary to prepare adequately for college entrance. 
Of the twenty-three, eleven had more than twenty students of col- 
lege rank. Nine others were doing work of college grade. The 
following conclusion was reached: 

As has been shown, there are about thirty-two colored institutions doing 
college work; but the leading colleges according to the Carnegie Foundation 
units, which have a reasonable number of students are: Howard University, 
Fisk University, Atlanta University, Wiley University, Leland University, 
Virginia Union University, Clark University, Knoxville College, Spelman 
Seminary, Claflin University, Atlanta Baptist College (now Morehouse Col- 
lege), Lincoln University, Talladega College. 

Mr. Williams concludes his study of twenty-two Negro uni- 
versities in the South with the following statements: 

A few of these universities or other colleges doing similar work might be 
taken and so developed as to meet practically all the needs of Negro youth 
for many years. All things considered, the best six of these colored univer- 
sities are Howard, Fisk, Virginia Union, Atlanta, Shaw and Wiley. These 
schools have already been of exceptional service in the higher development of 
the colored people. Each one has built up for itself a good following. And 
they are all fairly well located as educational centers for the ampler training 
of the brighter Negro youth of the South. 

It must not, however, be forgotten that, as a study of the facilities for 
the higher education of the Negro in the South, this consideration of the 
Negro universities alone is arbitrarily narrow and incomplete. There are 
at least five other institutions with less pretentious titles doing as advanced 
and as effective work as seven-eighths of these universities. They are: Talla- 
dega College, Talladega, Ala. ; Atlanta Baptist College (Morehouse College) 
Atlanta, Ga. ; Knoxville College, Knoxville, Tenn. ; Benedict College, Colum- 
bia, S. C; Bishop College, Marshall, Texas. And there are at least a dozen 
other colleges whose work will not suffer in comparison with that of more 
than half the universities. 

It should be noted that Mr. Williams' study is confined to 
Southern universities and therefore does not include Wilberforce and 
Lincoln. 

Judging solely from the number of institutions offering college 
courses one might conclude that higher education for the Negroes 
was being overdone; but as a matter of fact only a small proportion 
of the students enrolled in the institutions in question are engaged 
in college work. Practically all of the colleges have also high school 
departments. This is made necessary by the failure of the South 



214 



The Annals of the American Academy 



to provide in the public schools for the high school education of the 
Negroes. Most of the institutions also have classes in the grades, 
Tables compiled by the Atlanta University study show in the thirty- 
two institutions the following enrollment: 

Number of students in college classes 1,131 

Number of students in high school classes 3,896 

Number in grades 6,845 

Professional 1,602 

Total 13,474 

Of all students of college grade and below only about 9.5 per 
cent were enrolled in college classes. A similar study of twenty-two 
universities by Mr. Williams shows only about 11 per cent enrolled 
in college classes. 

Most of the institutions founded by the church societies offer 
theological courses though none of them has made the academic 
requirements very rigid. Mr. Williams reports that "Shaw, Virginia 
Union and Howard are perhaps doing more than the others to raise 
the grade of their regular work to that of well recognized theologi- 
cal schools." The Meharry Medical School of Walden University 
in Nashville enrolled 523 students this year. Two other universities 
offer graduate courses in law and medicine which qualify graduates 
to pass state examinations and practice successfully. Their em-oll- 
ment reported for 1913 is as follows: 





PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS 




Theological 


Law 


Medical 


Shaw University, Raleigh 

Howard University, Wash- 
ington 


19 
97 


8 
121 


156 

341 







In the four institutions named above there are 1,295 students 
enrolled in the professional schools, representing the best work of 
this type done by the Southern Negro universities. Many of the 
brightest students of the Southern colleges have later graduated in 
professional studies in Northern universities. 

The value of the higher education of the Negroes can be best 
determined by the record of the college graduates. In making the 
Atlanta University study, a questionnaire was sent out from which 



Higher Education of the Negroes 215 

answers were received from eight hundred Negro college graduates, 
a number which was estimated as covering about one-fourth of the 
entire number of living graduates and therefore considered typical 
of the whole group. 

Of the number reporting 53.8 per cent were engaged in teach- 
ing, 20 per cent in preaching, 7 per cent in medicine and 3.8 per 
cent in law; the others were engaged in various occupations. It 
appears that the largest group is engaged in the work for which 
the first colleges were founded; they have become "teachers for 
those requiring to be taught." The three professions claiming the 
next largest numbers without question demand for the best service 
the most liberal education possible. 

The whole system of public education in the South from the 
grammar school to the state college provides for the separate edu- 
cation of the two races; and almost without exception the Negro 
schools are presided over and taught by people of their own race. 
Most of the private schools of the industrial type and those doing 
work of secondary grade are also taught by Negroes. It may be 
said without question that such measure of success as these insti- 
tutions have attained has been largely due to the teacher training 
of the institutions of higher education. 

From information recently obtained from fifteen of the South- 
ern state normal and agricultural schools it appears that 142 of 
their 347 teachers, all of them colored, are graduates of colleges. 
That is, 41 per cent, or about two-fifths of the teachers in the state 
schools for Negroes are college graduates. Of the 186 teachers and 
instructors at Tuskegee Institute 45, or 24 per cent, are college grad- 
uates. On the other hand there may always be found in the better 
Negro colleges graduates of the industrial schools who have proved 
themselves capable of further study. There are now several Tuske- 
gee graduates studying at Atlanta University and several Atlanta 
graduates teaching at Tuskegee. This suggests that the two types 
of education are but branches of the same great work, the work of 
educating a race. 

The question of the relative importance of industrial and higher 
education for the Negroes has led to much fruitless discussion. The 
truth is that both types of training are indispensable for the proper 
education of the people; and neither can fulfil its mission without 
cooperation with the other. The advantage of such industrial train- 
ing as that offered by Hampton Institute is established beyond the 



216 The Annals of the American Academy 

shadow of a doubt. One of the surest evidences of this is that it 
is no longer urged as a pecuhar method of dealing with Negro youth, 
but that it has influenced and modified our opinions regarding the 
whole question of public school training for the children of America, 
tending to emphasize the organic, vital relationship between edu- 
cation and the problems of every day life. Hampton has been a 
pioneer in the campaign for vocational training not of the Negroes 
alone but of all Americans. As a special type of training adapted 
to the Negroes, it may have had opponents, but as a type of train- 
ing making for efficient citizenship and specially adapted to the 
needs of a multitude of American citizens it has acquired a position 
where its friends and advocates need fear no opposition. There 
may be those who would allow vocational training to crowd aca- 
demic instruction to the wall but the true followers of General Arm- 
strong are not among them. And who would argue that because 
industrial education of this sort is good for white youth the colleges 
of New England should be turned into industrial or technical schools? 

The higher education of the Negroes is quite a different ques- 
tion today from what it was fifty years ago. Like any question 
involving so large a number of citizens and containing so many 
human elements, it is a matter of national rather than sectional 
concern; still it must affect the Negroes and the South more directly 
than any other part of the nation. There are elements to deal Avith 
today which either did not exist or were practically ignored fifty 
years ago. At that time we did not ask the Negro if he wanted 
higher education and we did not consult his former master to know 
whether it was advisable. Northern philanthropy took the Negro 
by the hand and said, "I know that you have the ability to learn," 
and then opened before him the door of opportunity. 

There were many who ridiculed the effort, saying that it was 
foredoomed to failure, and among them were people of the South 
who thought they understood the Negro race and knew its limita- 
tions. Today we must work with the Negro rather than for him. 
How shall we know what is best for the race without taking into 
our counsels the thousands of its college graduates? 

Another element which must not be ignored in any educational 
effort for the Negroes is that growing class of Southern white people 
who appreciate the educational needs of the colored people as Amer- 
ican citizens and who sympathize with their best aspirations. Dr. 
W. D. Weatherford, a Southerner and secretary of the Young Men's 



Higher Education of the Negroes 217 

Christian Association has organized in Southern white colleges 
classes for the study of the Negro problem. In 1912 there were 
enrolled in these classes 6,000 college men. This study has done 
much to quicken the interest and sympathy of white college students 
in the welfare of Southern Negroes. 

At the second session of the Southern Sociological Congress 
held in Atlanta last April there was a section devoted to the dis- 
cussion of the Negro problems. Dr. James H. Dillard presided and 
Dr. Weatherford acted as secretary. Addresses were made by white 
and colored delegates and both entered into the open discussions. 
Some of the addresses most sympathetic to the Negroes and most 
courageous in their condemnation of the evils of race prejudice were 
delivered by young professors in Southern white colleges. At the 
last general gathering of the congress a significant remark was made 
by a young colored teacher in Morehouse College. He said, in 
substance, "I have been greatly encouraged by the attitude of 
sympathy and fairness taken by young men of the white race to- 
ward the Negroes in this congress. Nothing can better make for 
progress than the mutual understanding and cooperation of the 
young college men of both races." This is certainly true, and the 
college education of both should help make possible wise cooperation. 

And what is the attitude of these two elements — the educated 
Negroes and the educated Southern white people — toward the higher 
education of the Negroes? One question asked of the Negro college 
graduates in the Atlanta University investigation was, "How shall 
you educate your children?" The report says, "By far the greater 
number of those making reply are planning to give their children 
the advantages of a college education, hoping thereby to properly 
equip them for life's work, whether in the trades or in the profes- 
sions." Typical answers ar^, "I believe in educating the child to 
make the best citizen; a college education to those who will take 
it," and, "It is my intention to give them the very best education 
that they can assimilate." 

In answer to the question, "What is your present practical 
philosophy in regard to the Negro race in America?" there were 
many interesting answers upon which the following comment is made : 

A careful reading of the above quotations from the replies of the Negro 
college graduates discloses on the whole a hopeful and encouraging attitude 
on the part of these educated men and women. Though hampered by preju- 
dice and its accompanying discriminations as well as by lack of opportunity 



218 The Annals of the American Academy 

these men and women are for the most part hopeful of the future of the Negro 
race in America. 

Of this we may be certain, every Negro who receives a modern 
college education worthy of the name will be fully aware of the dis- 
criminations and injustices that fall to his lot because he is a Negro 
and lives in America. And it is a question how long he will endure 
with patience the disabilities under which he lives at present on 
this account. The answers to the questiormaire make repeated claim 
to equality before the law, full citizenship rights and privileges, the 
right to vote and um-estricted educational opportunities. What edu- 
cated American citizen would demand less? 

We cannot expect that all Southern white people, even those 
who have received the benefits of higher education, will sympathize 
with the educated Negroes or applaud their sentiments of inde- 
pendence. But there is a growing number who will. 

In 1909 the Rev. Quincy Ewing of Napoleonville, La., addressed 
to Dr. Horace Bumstead a letter from which I shall quote in con- 
cluding: for here we have an expression of a Southern white man 
regarding the higher education of the Negro which will remind us 
strongly of the noble motives prompting the establishment of colleges 
for the Negroes fifty years ago. 

You are very right to feel that the efforts you and others are making in 
behalf of Atlanta University have not only my approval but also my applause. 
I could not feel otherwise except on one of two grounds, viz., that the higher 
education is not good for a human being; or that the Negro is not really a 
human being. If he is a human being, he has as much right as I to everything 
that is humanly uplifting, to everything that makes for a complete and exalted 
humanness. A denial of the Negro's essential humanness is involved in every 
argument I have ever heard against his higher education: a denial equivalent 
to the affirmation, that the Negro should not be what he wants to be, not what 
he is capable of being, but what other peopFe, his superiors, find it agreeable 
to themselves for him to be. 

The untrammeled education of any subordinate race so easily segregated 
as the Negroes, must be painfully uphill work, until the spirit of true democ- 
racy becomes dominant among us; or until the mark of true aristocracy shall 
be among us, scorn of the idea that one man is born to serve another of a 
different kind, and love of the idea that every man is born to serve every 
other of every kind. If there were only some way to get the majority of us 
educated by the spirit of what is really democracy, or by the spirit of what 
is really aristocracy — only some way of solving this fundamental problem, all 
our other educational problems would be the simplest things with which we 
have to deal! 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

By Booker T. Washington, LL.D., 
Principal, Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Ala. 

Fifty years ago the Negro people of the United States started 
out empty handed, without property, without education and with 
very httle knowledge or experience, on a great adventure. Abraham 
Lincoln's proclamation of emancipation had given them their free- 
dom, and the two war amendments to the constitution had made 
them citizens of the United States and given them the ballot. With 
these they started out in the new world so to speak to seek their 
fortunes which freedom had opened to them. 

Although slavery and the Negro had been the real issue between 
the North and the South in the Civil War, when the war was over 
the Negro was not without friends in both sections of the country. 
There were numbers of people both in the South and in the North, 
who washed the Negro well, and were glad to advise him and help 
him to make his way under the new conditions in which he found 

himself. 

The difficulty was that the two sections of the country held 
diametrically opposite notions as to the best way to proceed. In 
the long controversy which followed, the bewildered freedman was 
like a ball that is batted from one side to another by rival players 
in a game. The result was that the Negro got most of the knocks 
and, in the end, was throwm pretty much on his own resources and 
compelled to make his oAvn way as best he could. 

As was to be expected under the circumstances, the Negro, for 
a nmnber of years, groped his way along and often strayed from the 
direct path, but in spite of all he made progress— great progress, in 
fact — when all the circumstances are considered. 

It is my purpose, in the article which follows, to tell something 
of the progress which the Negro has made during these years in the 
matter of education, and to indicate, so far as I am able, the direc- 
tion in which further progress may be expected in the future. 

Let me say, to begin with, that one of the first and most impor- 
tant things which emancipation did for the Negro and the South 

219 



220 The Annals of the American Academy 

was to bring into existence a public school system. Previous to the 
Civil War there had been no public school system worthy of the 
name, in the slave states, so that, whatever anyone may say in 
regard to the wisdom or lack of wisdom in giving the Negro the 
ballot, it should not be forgotten that it was the Negro vote which 
gave the white man the public school. 

Negro education began in the South, however, several years 
before there were any Negro votes or any public school system. 
A little army of Yankee school ma'ms followed in the wake of the 
Northern armies and, wherever the federal forces succeeded in estab- 
lishing themselves on Southern soil, schools for the education of the 
freedmen were started. 

It was in September, 1861, that the first school for freedmen 
was started in the South. This school, established by the American 
Missionary Association, was located at Fortress Monroe, Virginia, and 
it laid the foundation for the Hampton Institute, the first distinc- 
tively industrial school, so far as I know, to be established in the 
United States for either race. 

After emancipation schools for the freedmen multiplied through- 
out the South, under the direction of the freedmen's bureau, which 
had charge of the education of the freedmen from 1865 to 1870, 
when its work was discontinued. Either under its direction, or in 
cooperation with it, there were established during this short period 
2,677 schools with 3,300 teachers and 149,587 pupils. 

Statistics give but a poor conception of the character of these 
early freedmen's schools. Most of them were located in abandoned 
buildings of some kind or other. Some of them were established 
in old army barracks; others were started in churches, and still 
others were held out in the open, under the shade of a convenient 
tree. Children and old men sat side by side upon the rude benches. 
Those who were not able to go to school in the daytime went to 
school at night, and those who could not find time to go to school 
during the other days in the week crowded into the Sabbath schools 
on Sundaj^ 

Old blue back spellers were dug up out of odd corners into 
which they had been hidden away during slavery times and, with 
these and such other books as they could find, the whole race set 
out to master the mystery of letters. The most pathetic figures, 
in all the eager and excited throng which crowded into the school 



Industrial Education and Public Schools 221 

rooms, were the old men and women who hoped before they died 
to be able to learn to read the one book of which they had any knowl- 
edge, namely, the Bible. 

The first report of the United States commissioner was pub- 
lished in 1870. From the scattered and fragmentary figures and 
statements which it offers, one is able to gain some notion of the 
condition of the Negro schools at that time. In Alabama the report 
of the general superintendent of the freedmen's bureau, which the 
commissioner quotes, indicated that there were 155 schools, with 
168 teachers and 11,531 pupils. At this time, also, Alabama had 
49 Negro Sabbath schools, with 244 teachers and 8,744 pupils. The 
number of pupils paying tuition in the day schools was 633 and the 
amount of money collected from these pupils was $1,248.95. By 
1872 conditions had much improved. At this time there were en- 
rolled in the colored schools of Alabama 54,334 pupils, with an 
average attendance of 41,308. This was an increase of 25,000 over 
the previous year. 

In 1881, the year in which the Tuskegee Institute was started 
in Macon County, Ala., the condition of the schools throughout the 
state was not much better than it had been nine years before. There 
were 68,951 pupils enrolled, with an average attendance of 48,476. 
The average length of the school year in the public schools was 
seventy-eight days. Only about one-third of the Negro children 
of school age were enrolled in the schools and not more than 28 per 
cent were in actual attendance. 

In South Carolina the Negro public schools in 1870 were not 
as far advanced, so far as one can judge from the reports, than they 
Avere in Alabama at the same period. The failure of the general 
assembly to pass a school bill had left the public schools Avithout 
funds, and the report states that "the children of the state are 
growing up in ignorance." Reports from the counties showed that 
''the chief obstacles to an efficient school system are the want of 
funds, the indifference resulting from ignorance, and a deep-rooted 
prejudice on the part of both races to mixed schools." The super- 
intendent of the freedmen's schools furnished information of the 
existence of eight schools for Negroes with an enrollment of 3,500. 
One of these was a freedmen's pay school supported entirely by 
colored people. 

Directly after the war conditions in some of the Northern 



222 The Annals of the American Academy 

States were not much better than they were in the South. In 
IlUnois, for example, Negro children were almost wholly ignored 
in the common school legislation, except that a provision was made 
that the money paid by Negroes in the form of taxes should be 
applied to Negro education. In practice, however, this was not 
done. Still in some of the towns of the state adequate provision 
was made for the colored children. In Indiana Negro education 
was not much better provided for than in Illinois. The law pro- 
vided that Negro children should be educated apart and, in accord- 
ance with this law, the city of Indianapolis set aside two school 
buildings for the use of the colored children, "although," the report 
adds, "they have been for several years out of use because of their 
unfitness." 

On the other hand, the city of Baltimore, Md., had at this time 
63 schools for colored children and in addition to this an efficient 
normal school with 5 teachers and 210 pupils. In other parts of 
the state, however, the colored public schools, so far as any indi- 
cations given in the reports show, did not exist. The law provided 
that the money paid in taxes by colored people should be used for 
the education of the colored children. The records show that the 
sum of $951.27, collected from Negro tax-payers in six counties, 
had been charged as paid out to colored schools, but there was no 
report of any such schools existing. 

The vague and indefinite character of these reports suggests 
the condition and the character of the early Negro schools. This 
was to be expected. The Civil War had brought financial ruin to 
the Southern States; there was neither money nor means to build 
school houses and maintain schools. In some respects, in spite of 
their poverty and their ignorance, the freedmen were in a better 
situation than their former masters. They had, at least, the physical 
strength and training for rough work of the fields and it was this 
kind of labor that was necessary to make a beginning. 

Besides all else the country was torn and distracted with politi- 
cal controversies, and public sentiment was indifferent when it was 
not hostile to Negro education. All of these facts should be con- 
sidered when an attempt is made to estimate the progress of Negro 
education during these early years and since. 

Notwithstanding these difficulties Negro education has made 
progress from the first. In 1877, when the first general summary 



Industrial Education and Public Schools 223 

of the statistics of education in the Southern States was made, it 
appeared that there were 571,500 colored children and 1,827,139 
white children enrolled in the public schools of the sixteen former 
slave states and the District of Columbia. By 1909 the number 
of children enrolled in the colored schools had increased to 1,712,137. 
This was, however, but 50.34 per cent of the total colored school 
population. 

Meanwhile the ilUteracy of the Negro in the Southern States 
has been reduced from something like 95 per cent of the whole 
population, at the beginning of freedom, to 33.3 per cent in 1910. 
In the United States as a whole the number of Negroes who could 
neither read nor Avrite was at this time 30.4 per cent of the whole 
Negro population. 

A further evidence of the progress which Negro education had 
made in forty-seven years is the number of high schools maintained 
for Negroes in different parts of the country. Not all of these, 
however, were located in the Southern States. Of the 141 colored 
high schools supported by states and municipalities, reported by 
the commissioner of education in 1910, there were 4 in Alabama, 
6 in Arkansas, 1 in Delaware, 1 in the District of Columbia, 6 in 
Florida, 11 in Georgia, 7 in Kentucky, 8 in Mississippi, 1 in Mary- 
land, 21 in Missouri, 3 in Oklahoma, 4 in South Carolina, 7 in 
Tennessee, 36 in Texas, 5 in Virginia, 5 in West Virginia. Besides 
these there were high schools for Negroes in other states: Illinois 4, 
Indiana 6, Kansas 1, Ohio 2, Pennsylvania 1. 

Although the statistics indicate that Negro illiteracy has been 
steadily reduced until at the present time more than two-thirds of 
the whole Negro population is able both to read and write, this 
much could not have been accomplished unless the work of the 
public schools had been supplemented by that of other schools main- 
tained by private philanthropy. 

It is safe to say that, of the 34,000 Negro teachers now carry- 
ing on the work of the public schools in the South, the majority, 
if not all, of these who have obtained anything like an adequate 
training for their work, have been educated in schools that have 
been maintained, in whole or in part, by private philanthropy. The 
number of these schools has grown steadily with the growth of the 
public schools and especially in recent years there have sprung up 
a multitude of smaller academies and so-called colleges, supported 



224 The Annals of the American Academy 

to a very large extent by the colored people themselves, which have 
supplemented and to some extent extended the work of the public 

schools. 

As near as I am able to determine there are not fewer than 600 
schools of various kinds, colleges, academies, industrial and pro- 
fessional schools, supported for the most part by private philanthropy 
in different Southern and Northern States. About 400 of these, I 
should say, are small schools which are doing the work of the public 
schools in the primary grades. 

Of these smaller schools there are at present no statistics avail- 
able to indicate the character and extent of the work they are doing. 
Of the 189 larger and more advanced schools of which there is record, 
the statistics show that they have 2,941 teachers and 57,915 pupils. 
Of the pupils in these schools, which include practically all of the 
institutions doing secondary college work, 19,654 are in the second- 
ary grades; 3,214 are collegiate students, and 32,967 are in the 
elementary grades. In addition to these 2,080 are pursuing profes- 
sional studies and 29,954 are getting industrial training of some 
sort or other. 

Although the number of schools calling themselves colleges is 
relatively large the vast majority of their students are in the ele- 
mentary or secondary grades. For example, in the 189 schools 
referred to in the foregoing paragraph, nearly 60 per cent are in the 
elementary grades and only 5.5 per cent are pursuing collegiate 
studies. In fact, up to 1910 a careful study of the Negro college 
graduates indicates that altogether, from 1820 to 1909, the number 
of Negroes who had completed a course of study in a college or a 
University was not more than 3,856 and of this number about 700 
had graduated from Northern schools. 

It has been estimated that since 1870 the sixteen former slave 
states have contributed about $1,200,000,000 to the support of their 
public schools. Of this amount $160,000,000 went to the support 
of the Negro schools. 

I have not been able to determine with any accuracy the amount 
which has been contributed since emancipation to Negro education 
by religious and philanthropic agencies. As near as can be esti- 
mated it has amounted to about $50,000,000. To this should be 
added about $20,000,000 more which has been contributed by Negroes 
through their churches and other organizations. 



Industrial Education and Public Schools 225 

The progress of Negro education has undoubtedly been more 
rapid during the past ten years than during any previous similar 
period. Not only have several Southern cities built and equipped 
first class high schools for the benefit of their colored populations, 
but there has also been a marked advance, particularly in recent 
years, in the character of the colored rural schools in many parts 
of the country. This has been due to the work of the Anna T. 
Jeanes Fund in cooperation with the county superintendents, the 
rural industrial schools and the colored people themselves, in the 
communities in which these schools are located. 

A number of cities in the South, notably Louisville, Ky., have 
done much to put Negro education on a sound basis by the estab- 
lishment of branch libraries for the use of their colored populations. 
Until very recently there have been few places in the South where 
Negroes have had access to any large collection of books. Even 
the Negro colleges have been able to provide few if any modern 
books for the use of their students. Recently several of the larger 
schools, through the generosity of Mr. Andrew Carnegie, erected 
handsome and commodious library buildings and are now gradually 
accumulating the books necessary for serviceable working and 
reference libraries. 

The total annual expenditures for Negro education at the pres- 
ent time indicate to some extent the efficiency of Negro education, 
although Rural School Supervisor Tate, of South Carolina, says that, 
after a careful study of the conditions of the rural schools he has 
reached the conclusion that a large part of the money expended by 
South Carolina is wasted. 

He says in his report for 1911 and 1912: "During the year I 
have visited many schools in which three hours of demonstration 
work and practical suggestion would double the efficiency of an 
earnest but inexperienced teacher. The education of the Negro in 
South Carolina," he adds, "is in the hands of the white race. The 
white trustees apportion the funds, select the teachers and receive 
the reports. The county superintendent has the supervision of these 
schools in his hands. We have expended this year $349,834.60 in 
the support of the Negro schools. I have never visited one of these 
schools without feeling that we were wasting a large part of this 
money and neglecting a great opportunity." 

The total expenditures for Negro schools in the United States 



226 The Annals of the American Academy 

in 1911 and 1912 amounted to $13,061,700. Of this amount the 
sum of $8,645,846 was contributed to the support of the pubHc 
schools by the sixteen former slave states, the District of Columbia 
and Oklahoma. The total amount expended by states and munici- 
palities for secondary and higher education was $758,972. To this 
sum should be added $299,267, contributed by the federal govern- 
ment and $3,359,015 from other sources, making the total expendi- 
tures for the secondary and higher education of the Negro in the 
United States as a whole, $4,415,854. Negroes represent 11 per 
cent of the population and receive about 2 per cent of the school 
funds for their education. 

I have tried, in what I have written thus far, to indicate, so 
far as it is possible to do so by means of statistics and formal state- 
ments, the progress which the Negro has made in education during 
the fifty years of freedom. There have, however, been so much change 
and progress in Negro education that no statistics, which merely 
show for schools or the proportion of children in the schools, can 
give any adequate account. 

If I were asked what I believe to be the greatest advance which 
Negro education has made since emancipation I should say that it 
had been in two directions: first, the change which has taken place, 
among the masses of the Negro people, as to what education really 
is and, second, the change that has taken place, among the masses 
of the white people, in the South, toward Negro education itself. 

I can perhaps make clear what I mean by a little explanation. 
The Negro learned in slavery to work but he did not learn to respect 
labor. On the contrary, the Negro was constantly taught, directly 
and indirectly during slavery times, that labor was a curse. It was 
the curse of Canaan, he was told, that condemned the black man 
to be for all time the slave and servant of the white man. It was 
the curse of Canaan that made him for all time "a hewer of wood 
and drawer of water." The consequence of this teaching was that, 
when emancipation came, the Negro thought freedom must, in some 
way, mean freedom from labor. 

The Negro had also gained in slavery some general notions in 
regard to education. He observed that the people who had educa- 
tion for the most part belonged to the aristocracy, to the master 
class, while the people who had little or no education were usually 
of the class known as "poor whites." In this way education became 



Industrial Education and Public Schools 227 

a.ssociated, in his mind, with leisure, with luxury, and freedom from 
the drudgery of work with the hands. 

Another thing that the Negro learned in slavery about educa- 
tion was that it was something that was denied to the man who 
was a slave. Naturally, as soon as freedom came, he was in a great 
hurry to get education as soon as possible. He wanted education 
more than he wanted land or property or anything else, except, 
perhaps, public office. Although the Negro had no very definite 
notion in regard to education, he was pretty sure that, whatever 
else it might be, it had nothing to do with work, especially work 
with the hands. 

In order to make it possible to put Negro education on a sound 
and rational basis, it has been necessary to change the opinion of 
the masses of the Negro people in regard to education and labor. 
It has been necessary to make them see that education which did 
not, directly or indirectly, connect itself with the practical daily 
interests of daily life could hardly be called education. It has been 
necessary to make the masses of the Negroes see and reaUze the 
necessity and importance of applying what they learned in school 
to the common and ordinary things of life; to see that education, 
far from being a means of escaping labor, is a means of raising up 
and dignifying labor and thus, indirectly a means of raising up and 
dignifying the common and ordinary man. It has been necessary 
to teach the masses of the people that the way to build up a race is 
to begin at the bottom and not at the top, to lift the man furthest 
down, and thus raise the whole structure of society above him. 

On the other hand, it has been necessary to demonstrate to 
the white man in the South that education does not ''spoil" the 
Negro, as it had been so often predicted that it would. It was 
necessary to make him actually see that education makes the Negro 
not an idler or spendthrift, but a more industrious thrifty, law- 
abiding and useful citizen than he otherwise would be. 

As there never was any hope of educating the great mass of 
the Negroes in the South outside of the pubhc schools, so there was 
no hope of a thoroughly efficient school system until the Southern 
white man was convinced that Negro education was of some real 
value, not only to the Negro himself, but also to the community. 

The task of changing the popular opinion of both races in the 
South in regard to the value and meaning of Negro education, has 



228 The Annals of the American Academy 

fallen very largely to the industrial schools. The first great task 
of these schools has been to teach the masses of the Negro people 
that every form of labor is honorable and that every form of idleness 
is disgraceful. The second great task has been to prove to the 
masses of the Southern people, by actual living examples, that money 
invested in Negro education pays, when that education is real and 
not a sham. 

As far as the masses of the Negro people are concerned, this 
task is pretty nearly completed. There was a time at Tuskegee 
when parents objected to their children doing work ^vith the hands 
in connection with their school work. They said they wanted their 
children to study books, and the more books and the bigger the 
books, the better they were satisfied. At the present time at Tuske- 
gee, the work in the shops and on the farm is just as interesting, 
just as much sought after by pupils, as work in the class room. So 
great has been the change in the attitude of the masses of the people 
in this regard that a school which does not advertise some sort of 
industrial training finds it difficult to get students. At the present 
time almost every Negro school teaches some sort of industry and 
the number of schools which advertise themselves as industrial insti- 
tutes is constantly increasing. There are, for example, not fewer 
than four hundred little schools in the South today which call them- 
selves industrial schools, although, in many instances, these schools 
are doing little, if anything more, in the direction of industrial 
training than the pubhc schools. 

But if there has been a change in the opinion of the masses of 
the colored people in regard to education, there has been an equally 
great change in the attitude of the Southern white people in regard 
to the education of the Negro. 

There never was a time when the thoughtful, sober people in 
the South did not perceive the necessity of educating the Negro, 
not merely for the sake of the Negro himself, but for the sake of 
the South. Some of the strongest and wisest friends of Negro edu- 
cation have been men who were born or lived in the South. The 
Hon. William H. Rufner, who inaugurated the first public school 
system in Virginia and was state superintendent of education in 
that state from 1870 to 1882, made a strong and statesmanlike plea 
for the education of all the people, black and white, in his first 
annual report. From that day to this there have always been wise 



Industrial Education and Public Schools 229 

and courageous men in the South who were ready at all times to go 
out of their way to urge the necessity of giving the Negro equal 
opportunities with the white man, not only for education but also 
for advancement in every other direction. 

On the other hand it can not be denied that the mass of Southern 
white people have been until recent years, either positively hostile 
or else indifferent toward Negro education. 

No one who studied the trend of opinion in the South can fail 
to realize that there has been a great change in the attitude of the 
white people of the South in regard to the education of the Negro 
within, say, the last five years. There is every evidence, at the 
present time, that the Southern people have determined to take up 
in a serious way the education of the Negro, and the black man is 
to have better opportunities, not only in the matter of education, 
but also in every other direction. 

One indication of this changed attitude is the fact that all 
through the South state and county superintendents are beginning 
to take a more real and active interest in the progress of the Negro 
schools. Five Southern States have already appointed assistant state 
superintendents of schools whose sole duty will be to look after the 
interest of the Negro schools. In many instances Negro supervisors 
have been appointed to assist the county superintendents in the 
work of improving the Negro schools. Usually these Negro super- 
visors have been supported, in whole or in part, by funds furnished 
by the Anna T. Jeanes Fund for the improvement of the colored 
rural schools. 

As an indication of the interest which this work among the 
colored rural schools has aroused, I can not do better than quote 
from a recent letter written by County Superintendent Oliver, of 
Tallapoosa County, Ala., and published in the Alabama Progressive 
School Journal, at Birmingham, Ala. Superintendent Oliver says: 

Perhaps no one thing has claimed the attention of our educators of late 
that means more for our rural schools than efficient school supervision. If 
anything more was needed to convince me of its supreme importance I have 
but to call to mind what it has done for our colored schools in Tallapoosa 
County during the present scholastic year. 

Learning that Dr. J. H. Dillard, of New Orleans, was president of the Negro 
Rural School Fund, founded by Anna T. Jeanes, I opened correspondence with 
him, resulting in securing Prof. Thomas J. Edwards for this purpose, his 
expenses being defrayed by this Fund. 



230 The Annals of the American Academy 

On November 1, 1911, Edwards reported to me for work. After mapping 
out his line of work, Edwards commenced visiting the colored schools in the 
country, making weekly reports to me, and getting further directions for each 
ensuing week. He commenced at once to organize in each colored school 
visited a school improvement association, cooperative corn and cotton clubs, 
where school children and patrons cultivate the grounds, taking lessons in 
agriculture at the same time, and agreeing that the proceeds arising there- 
from should enure to the benefit of the school in equipping the same and 
extending the school term, introducing manual training, both for boys and 
girls. 

Edwards kept me fully posted as to his work, and it is simply wonderful 
how much has been accomplished in a short time. 

I have visited several of his schools in person and the improvement is 
most striking. The school yards have been cleared and planted in trees and 
flowers; corn clubs have been organized and work done on the little farms, 
and manual art and domestic science introduced into most of these schools, 
where wood work, raffia and straw basket making and sewing are being learned 
by the children, who seem cheerful, industrious and making progress, while 
this work does not seem to decrease their interest in their books. 

About two months ago an exhibition of work done in these schools was 
given in the colored Baptist church in Dadeville, and it was a revelation and 
a surprise to all attending. The several schools vied with each other. In 
the exhibits could be seen axe handles, shuck foot-mats, etc., executed by the 
boys, who told of what they were doing on the school farms; while girls showed 
baskets and hats of all sizes and shapes wrought from raffia, straw and shucks, 
as well as all kinds of needle work, from the coarsest fabrics to the finest hand 
work in center pieces. 

This general interest brought about by social contact and community 
cooperation has resulted in lengthening school terms from two to three months 
and the organization and establishment of the Tallapoosa County Colored 
Fair, to be held in New Adka community, in this county, on November 14-15, 
1912. An extensive premium list has already been printed and circulated, 
offering premiums to successful contestants where the purpose is to encourage 
the manual arts in schools and increase agricultural production by colored 
farmers. 

I have quoted this letter of Superintendent OUver at some 
length for two reasons: first because it gives a succinct description 
of the manner in which industrial education is now being introduced 
through the agency of the Jeanes Fund, into colored schools in 
many parts of the South and, second, because it illustrates, better 
than any words that I am able to write, the sort of interest and 
enthusiasm which the effort to improve the public schools in modern 
and practical ways has created among the members of both races 
in the South. 



Industrial Education and Public Schools 231 

I ought to add that Mr. T. J. Edwards, the supervising teacher 
mentioned in this letter, is a graduate of Hampton Institute and 
was employed for several years at Tuskegee Institute, where he did 
a similar work in the county immediately around that school. 

What makes this letter interesting from another point of view 
is that it is written by a man who is dealing at first hand with Negro 
education in the county of which he is superintendent. The inter- 
est which Mr. Oliver has expressed in the work of the Negro schools 
is, for that reason, representative of the sentiment of the average 
intelligent citizen of the county and illustrates the new interest of 
the average intelligent and public spirited white man in the South 
on the subject of Negro education. I mention this fact because 
it is the opinion of the average white man that is going to determine, 
in the long run, the extent to which the Negro school is going to 
secure the consideration and support of the state and the commu- 
nity in the work which it is trying to do. 

What, you may ask, has brought about this change of senti- 
ment of the average white man toward the colored school? 

One thing that has done a;^ much as anything else to bring 
about the change has been the demonstration farming movement. 
Demonstration farming has taught the average farmer the impor- 
tance of applying science and skill to the work of the farm and he 
has argued that, what this sort of education has done for the white 
farmer it will also do for the colored farmer. He has foreseen, also, 
that the education which makes the Negro a better farmer will 
make the South a richer community. That is one reason that the 
average Southern white man has come to take an interest in Negro 
education. 

Another thing that has helped to bring about this change is 
that the Southern white man has seen for himself the effects of 
Negro education upon the Negro. 

There is no way in which industrial schools, like Hampton and 
Tuskegee, have done more to change the sentiment of both races 
in regard to education and so prepare the way for the building up of 
a real and efficient system of Negro education in the South than in 
the character of the graduates that have gone out from these schools 
and from others, to work in the rural communities as teachers and 
leaders, and to illustrate in their own lives the practical value of 
the education they have obtained. 



232 The Annals of the AiMerican Academy 

In referring in this way to the manner in which the industrial 
schools have helped to change sentiment and create sympathy for 
Negro education among the masses of the white people in the South 
I do not intend to say that the graduates of other institutions, with 
different aims, have not done their part. I merely intend to empha- 
size the fact that the industrial schools have made it part of their pro- 
gram to connect the work in the schools with the practical interests 
of the people about them, and that they have everywhere sought 
to emphasize the fact that the function of the school is not merely 
to teach a certain number of class room studies to a certain number 
of students, but to use the school as a means for building up and 
improving the moral and material life of the communities in which 
these schools are located. 

In conclusion let me add that, although much has been accom- 
plished in the past, much still remains to be done. We have not 
yet obtained in the South anything like the results we can and 
should obtain under a thoroughly efficient system of public schools. 

Not since the Christian missionaries set out from Rome to 
C'hristianize and civilize the people of western Europe, I am almost 
tempted to say, has there ever been a social experiment undertaken 
on so large a scale as that which was begun fifty years ago with 
the founding of the first Negro school in the South. As yet that 
experiment is but half completed. No one can yet say what Negro 
education can accompHsh for the Negro and the South because 
Negro education has never been thoroughly tried. 

At last, however, it seems as if the time had come when white 
people and colored people, North and South, might come together 
in order to take up really and seriously the work which was begun 
with the emancipation of the slaves. If this is true, then, this fact 
indicates better than any statistics can possibly do, the progress 
which Negro education has made in fifty years. 



THE NEGRO IN LITERATURE AND ART 
W. E. BuRGHARDT DuBois, Ph.D., 

Editor, The Crisis, New York 

The Negro is primarily an artist. The usual way of putting 
this is to speak disdainfully of his sensuous nature. This means 
that the only race which has held at bay the life destroying forces 
of the tropics, has gained therefrom in some slight compensation a 
sense of beauty, particularly for sound and color, which character- 
izes the race. The Negro blood which flowed in the veins of many 
of the mightiest of the Pharaohs accounts for much of Egyptian art, 
and indeed, Egyptian civilization owes much in its origins to the 
development of the large strain of Negro blood which manifested 
itself in every grade of Egyptian society. 

Semitic civilization also had its Negroid influences, and these 
continually turn toward art as in the case of Nosseyeb, one of the 
five great poets of Damascus under the Ommiades. It was there- 
fore not to be wondered at that in modern days one of the greatest 
of modern literatures, the Russian, should have been founded by 
Pushkin, the grandson of a full blooded Negro, and that among the 
painters of Spain was the mulatto slave, Gomez. Back of all this 
development by way of contact, comes the artistic sense of the in- 
digeneous Negro as shown in the stone figures of Sherbro, the bronzes 
of Benin, the marvelous handwork in iron and other metals which 
has characterized the Negro race so long that archeologists today, 
with less and less hesitation, are ascribing the discovery of the weld- 
ing of iron to the Negro race. 

To America, the Negro could bring only his music, but that 
was quite enough. The only real American music is that of the 
Negro American, except the meagre contribution of the Indian. Negro 
music divides itself into many parts: the older African wails and 
chants, the distinctively Afro-American folk song set to religious 
words and Calvinistic s^inbolism, and the newer music which the 
slaves adapted from surrounding themes. To this may be added the 
American music built on Negro themes such as "Suwanee River," 

233 



234 The Annals of the American Academy 

"John Brown's Body," "Old Black Joe," etc. In our day Negro 
artists like Johnson and Will Marian Cook have taken up this music 
and begun a newer and most important development, using the syn- 
copated measure popularly known as "rag time," but destined in the 
minds of musical students to a great career in the future. 

The expression in words of the tragic experiences of the Negro 
race is to be found in various places. First, of course, there are those, 
like Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote from without the race. Then 
there are black men like Es-Sadi who wrote the Epic of the Sudan, in 
Arabic, that great history of the fall of the greatest of Negro empires, 
the Songhay. In America the literary expression of Negroes has 
had a regular development. As early as the eighteenth century, and 
even before the Revolutionary War the first voices of Negro authors 
were heard in the United States. 

Phyllis Wheatley, the black poetess, was easily the pioneer, her 
first poems appearing in 1773, and other editions in 1774 and 1793. Her 
earliest poem was in memory of George Whitefield. She was followed 
by the Negro, Olaudah Equiano — known by his English name of 
Gustavus Vassa — whose autobiography of 350 pages, published in 
1787, was the beginning of that long series of personal appeals of 
which Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery is the latest. Ben- 
jamin Bamieker's almanacs represented the first scientific work of 
American Negroes, and began to be issued in 1792. 

Coming now to the first decades of the nineteenth century we find 
some essays on freedom by the African Society of Boston, and an 
apology for the new Negro church formed in Philadelphia. Paul 
Cufi'e, disgusted with America, wrote an early account of Sierra Leone, 
while the celebrated Lemuel Haynes, ignoring the race question, 
dipped deeply into the New England theological controversy about 
1815. In 1829 came the first full-voiced, almost hysterical, protest 
against slavery and the color line in David Walker's Appeal which 
aroused Southern legislatures to action. This was followed by the 
earliest Negro conventions which issued interesting minutes, and a 
strong appeal against chsfranchisement in Pennsylvania. 

In 1840 some strong writers began to appear. Henry Highland 
Garnet and J. W. C. Pennington preached powerful sermons and gave 
some attention to Negro history in their pamphlets; R. B. Lewis 
made a more elaborate attempt at Negro history. Whitfield's poems 
appeared in 1846, and William Wells Brown began a career of writ- 



Literature and Art 235 

ing which lasted from 1847 until after the war. In 1845 Douglass' 
autobiography made its first appearance, destined to run through 
endless editions up until the last in 1893. Moreover it was in 1841 
that the first Negro magazine appeared in America, edited by George 
Hogarth and published by the A. M. E. Church. 

In the fifties William Wells Brown published his Three Years in 
Europe; James Whitfield pubhshed further poems, and a new poet 
arose in the person of Frances E. W. Harper, a woman of no little 
ability who died lately; Martin R. Delaney and William Nell wrote 
further of Negro history, Nell especially making valuable contribu- 
tions to the history of the Negro soldiers. Three interesting biog- 
raphies were added to this decade to the growing number: Josiah 
Henson, Samuel G. Ward and Samual Northrop; while Catto, leaving 
general history, came down to the better known history of the Negro 
church. 

In the sixties slave narratives multiplied, like that of Linda 
Brent, while two studies of Africa based on actual visits were made 
by Robert Campbell and Dr. Alexander Crummell; William Douglass 
and Bishop Daniel Payne continued the history of the Negro church, 
while William Wells Brown carried forward his work in general Negro 
history. In this decade, too, Bishop Tanner began his work in Negro 
theology. 

Most of the Negro talent in the seventies was taken up in pol- 
itics; the older men like Bishop Wayman wrote of their experiences; 
William Wells Brown wrote the Rising Sun, and Sojourner Truth 
added her story to the slave narratives. A new poet arose in the 
person of A. A. Whitman, while James M. Trotter was the first to 
take literary note of the musical ability of his race. Indeed this 
section might have been begun by some reference to the music and 
folklore of the Negro race; the music contained much primitive poetry 
and the folklore was one of the great contributions to American 
civilization. 

In the eighties there are signs of unrest and different conflicting 
streams of thought. On the one hand the rapid growth of the Negro 
church is shown by the writers on church subjects like Moore and 
Wayman. The historical spirit was especially strong. Still wrote 
of the Underground Railroad; Simmons issued his interesting bio- 
graphical dictionary, and the greatest historian of the race appeared 
when George W. Williams issued his two-volume history of the 



236 The Annals of the American Academy 

Negro Race in America. The political turmoil was reflected in Lang- 
ston's Freedom and Citizenship, Fortune's Black and White, and 
Straker's New South, and found its bitterest arraignment in Turner's 
pamphlets; but with all this went other new thought; a black man 
published his First Greek Lessons, Bishop Payne issued his Treatise on 
Domestic Education, and Stewart studied Liberia. 

In the nineties came histories, essays, novels and poems, together 
with biographies and social studies. The history was represented 
by Payne's History oj the A. M. E. Church, Hood's History of the 
A. M. E. Zion Church, Anderson's sketch of Negro Preshyterianism 
and Hagood's Colored Man in the M. E. Church; general history 
of the older type by R. L. Perry's Cushite and the newer type 
in Johnson's history, while one of the secret societies found their 
historian in Brooks; Crogman's essays appeared and Archibald 
Grimke's biographies. The race question was discussed in Frank 
Grimke's published sermons, while social studies were made by Penn, 
Wright, Mossell, Crummell, Majors and others. Most notable, how- 
ever, was the rise of the Negro novehst and poet with national rec- 
ognition; Frances Harper was still writing and Griggs began his 
racial novels, but both of these spoke primarily to the Negro race; 
on the other hand, Chestnut's six novels and Dunbar's inimitable 
works spoke to the whole nation. 

Since 1900 the stream of Negro writing has continued. Dunbar 
has found a worthy successor in the less-known but more carefully 
cultured Braithwaite; Booker T. Washington has given us his bio- 
graphy and Story of the Negro; Kelly Miller's trenchant essays have 
appeared in book form; Sinclair's Aftermath of Slavery has attracted 
attention, as have the studies made by Atlanta University. The 
forward movement in Negro music is represented by J. W. and F. 
J. Work in one direction and Rosamond Johnson, Harry Burleigh 
and Will Marion Cook in another. 

On the whole, the hterary output of the American Negro has 
}>een both large and creditable, although, of course, comparatively 
little known; few great names have appeared and only here and there 
work that could be called first class, but this is not a peculiarity of 
Negro literature. 

The time has not yet come for the great development of Amer- 
ican Negro literature. The economic stress is too great and the racial 
persecution too bitter to allow the leisure and the poise for which 



Literature and Art 237 

literature calls. On the other hand, never in the world has a richer 
mass of material been accumulated by a people than that which 
the Negroes possess today and are becoming conscious of. Slowly 
but surely they are developing artists of technic who will be able to 
use this material. The nation does not notice this for everything 
touching the Negro is banned by magazines and pubhshers unless it 
takes the form of caricature or bitter attack, or is so thoroughly in- 
nocuous as to have no literary flavor. 

Outside of literature the American Negro has distinguished him- 
self in other lines of art. One need only mention Henry O. Tanner 
whose pictures hang in the great galleries of the world, including 
the Luxembourg. There are a score of other less known colored 
painters of ability including Bannister, Harper, Scott and Brown. 
To these may be added the actors headed by Ira Aldridge, who played 
in Covent Garden, was decorated by the King of Prussia and the 
Emperor of Russia, and made a member of learned societies. 

There have been many colored composers of music. Popular 
songs like Grandfather's Clock, Listen to the Mocking Bird, Carry 
Me Back to Old Virginia, etc., were composed by colored men. There 
were a half dozen composers of ability among New Orleans freed- 
men and Harry Burleigh, Cook and Johnson are well known today. 
There have been sculptors hke Edmonia Lewis, and singers like Flora 
Batson, whose color alone kept her from the grand opera stage. 

To appraise rightly this body of art one must remember that it 
represents the work of those artists only whom accident set free; if 
the artist had a white face his Negro blood did not militate against 
him in the fight for recognition; if his Negro blood was visible white 
relatives may have helped him; in a few cases ability was united to in- 
domJtable will. But the shrinking, modest, black artist without 
special encouragement had little or no chance in a world determined 
to make him a menial. So this sum of accomplishment is but an 
imperfect indication of what the Negro race is capable of in America 
and in the world. 



BOOK DEPARTMENT 

NOTES 

American Sociological Society, Publications of the. Vol. VI. Papers and 
Proceedings of Sixth Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Society, 
December, 1911. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1912. 

Anderson, F. I. The Farmer of Tomorrow. Pp. 308. Price, $1.50. New- 
York: Macmillan Company, 1913. 

The main contribution of this volume is a discussion of the relatively new 
doctrine that "The soil is the one indestructible, immutable asset that the 
nation possesses. It is the one resource that cannot be exhausted; that cannot 
be used up. It may be impaired by abuse, but never destroyed." This doctrine 
is compared with the former theory (and the one still taught, the author states, 
in the agricultural colleges, and held to by all the agricultural papers) that soils 
do wear out, and that the farmer must feed the soil, in proportion as his soil 
feeds his crop. The theory that the soil is an immutable asset accepts, of 
course, the fact that the soil may have its productiveness impaired or lowered, 
but it accounts for lower production on the ground that soils do not wear out 
but merely grow "fatigued." This new theory of soil fertility holds that each 
crop exudes a poison analogous to the poisons set free in the human system 
under fatigue, and that the proper method of restoring the fertility of the soil, 
therefore, is "to bring the flora and micro-fauna of the soil under control. 
Partial sterilization effects this; such antiseptics as chloroform, toluene, etc., 
eliminate certain organisms which check the useful bacteria. Heating to boiling 
for two hours doubles productivity and is practical in greenhouses. The prob- 
lem is to domesticate the unseen flora and fauna of the soil, the useful races 
to be encouraged, the noxious races suppressed." 

The book is interestingly written and full of many vital discussions. The 
author shows that 70 per cent of the farms are still being worked as a means of 
labor and not as business propositions, and feels that we are in a transition period 
between the older notion that the farm is a means of labor and the newer theory 
that it is a capital and must be made to pay interest. To show the significance 
of the increased amount of capital invested in farms, the author states that the 
tax value of the average acre of farm land in 1900 was $15.57 while in 1910 it was 
$32.40, an increase in land values during these ten years of 100.5 per cent. 

Andrews, C. McLean. The Colonial Period. Pp. vii, 256. Price, 50 cents. 

New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1912. 

This excellent volume in the Home University Library series differs in 
several interesting respects from the usual treatment of the American colonies. 
It emphasizes the conditions in England that affected the colonies and outlines 
the English policies of colonial control, thus making clear both the dependence 

239 



240 The Annals op the American Academy 

of early American history upon European conditions and, more specifically. 
the events leading to the Revolutionary War. Two chapters deal with England ; 
two, with the colonies; and six, with the relations between the colonies and the 
home land and among the colonies themselves. 

No effort is made to treat the colonies sep^arately, nor to narrate their 
chronological development, but a broad view is taken of the British possessions 
in America as a whole, Canada and the West Indies included. In this way a 
unity of viewpoint is secured that is often sacrificed in the topical method of 
study. The chapters devoted to colonial, political and social characteristics 
and to economic life and influence are particularly suggestive and represent 
the newer tendencies in historical writing. For any one who has some knowl- 
edge of the detailed facts of colonial history, this book is perhaps the best 
treatment, within the compass of two hundred pages, of the colonial period as 
a whole. 

Bagot, Richard. Italians of Today. Pp. 1<S7. Price, $1.25. Chicago: F. G. 

Browne and Company, 1913. 

Two objects stand out in this interesting little volume. The first is to 
present a description of the salient characteristics of the Italian people, the 
second to refute the charges made against the Italian soldiery of the Tripolitan 
war. The author has been a resident of the peninsula for many years and por- 
trays Italian traits from an intimate personal knowledge. He feels that 
Englishmen are too apt in visiting Italy to see only the attractions of Rome 
and fail to give proper attention to the remarkable performances of modern 
Italy. This leads not only to a lamentable ignorance on the part of the English 
public but to a lack of understanding. This has estranged two nations which 
should stand shoulder to shoulder not only because of similarity of virtues but 
because of the coincidence of their interests in the Mediterranean. The author 
feels that the attitude of the English press during Italy's war with Turkey has 
produced an unfortunate conviction in the Italian mind that the English are 
not only misinformed but wilfully unfair. Documents are quoted at length to 
justify the Italian declaration of war and to prove that though the Italian 
treatment of the Arabs was severe it was highly justified by circumstances. 

Barrows, Isabel C. A Sunny Life— The Biography of Samuel J. Barrows. 

Pp. xi, 323. Price, $1.50. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1913. 

The many friends of the late Samuel June Barrows will welcome this 
biographical tribute. Mrs. Barrows has presented a wealth of personal mate- 
rial, together with a detailed account of his public career. It is given to but 
few men to exert a wider personal influence than did Dr. Barrows. Thrown 
upon his own resources as a mere lad, he struggled to secure an education, 
entered the liberal ministry, passed into editorial work, then to Congress, and 
later to the work to which the greater part of his life was devoted^hat of the 
Prison Association of New York. At the time of his death he was president of 
the International Prison Congress. The success of the Washington Congress, 
1910, was in a great measure due to his great ability in planning; but he did 
not live to preside. 



Book Department 241 

Blakey, Roy G. The United States Beet-Sugar Industry and the Tariff. Pp. 
286. New York: Longmans, Green and Company, 1912. 

BoGART, Ernest L. Financial History of Ohio. Pp. 358. Urbana: University 

of Illinois, 1912. 

Part I, 180 pages, is devoted to a discussion of the financial and economic 
history of Ohio, state receipts and expenditures from 1803 to date, and the 
budgetary practices and methods of financial administration. Part II, 175 
pages, then discusses the history of the land tax, general property tax from 1825 
to 1851 and under the constitution of 1851, the history and taxation of banks 
and banking, of railroads and business and miscellaneous taxes. 

His conclusions he states throughout the volume. Thus he finds that the 
early period of state finance, ending in 1825, was accompanied by thrift and 
economy; that beginning with 1825, there was an increase in taxation and debt 
due to the state's comprehensive policy of internal improvements, most of the 
revenue for which was obtained by loans and miscellaneous receipts from the 
sale of land. The state's finances during this time, however, quite in contrast 
with Pennsylvania's history during the same period, were administered care- 
fully and economically, and the early canals were built, on the whole, cheaply. 
But beginning with 1845 there occurred "a decade of legislative extravagance, 
of administrative dishonesty, and of private and corporate corruption, which 
happily is unique in the history of the state." The Civil War brought efficiency 
into the state's financial administration again, which continued until the re- 
vival of prosperity following the industrial depression of 1873. With the revival 
of prosperity, "the general assembly embarked again upon a career of improvi- 
dence if not extravagance." This extravagance, it appears, continued until 
about 1895 when the state began to place its finances on a firm and stable basis. 
Now they suffer only from the "hand-to-mouth policy of an elective legislature 
and executive, chosen for short terms and anxious to be returned to office." 
The whole study is inclusive and scholarly. 

BowsFiELD, C. C. Making the Farm Pay. Pp. 300. Price, $1.00. Chicago: 

Forbes and Company, 1913. 

A sufficiently, not to saj^ questionably, hopeful account of the possibilities 
of profit from farming by the better methods now becoming more common, as 
diversified and more intensive cultivation, green manuring, silos, increased 
live-stock raising, farm accounting, etc. 

Brawley, B. G. a Short History of the American Negro. Pp. xvi, 247. Price, 

$1.25. New York: Macmillan Company, 1913. 

It is significant that an increasing number of Negroes are interested in 
their own historic backgrounds. To such this volume will be welcome. It 
presents little new material but it tells the story accurately and interestingly. 
The relation to the whites, education, religion, and achievement in all good 
things are treated. It would be well if all Negroes should read and ponder 
the last chapter "Negro Achievement in Literature, Art and Invention." 
It might create hope should whites likewise reflect on this record. 



242 The Annals of the American Academy 

Brooks, JoH^f Graham. American Syndicalism. Pp.264. Price, SI .50. New 

York: Macmillan Company, 1913. 

For years John Graham Brooks has been one of the recognized authorities 
on the American social unrest. His contribution to the problem of syndicalism, 
the latest and by far the most spectacular form of that unrest, is not only 
timely, but carries with it a weight of mature authority. Mr. Brooks is radical 
in the ordinary sense of the term; yet when he deals with a movement like the 
Industrial Workers of the World, his attitude smacks of conservatism. He sees 
the need for change and recognizes the importance of action, but counsels 
strongly against ill-advised, impulsive movements. He counsels reason. 

Brown, Samuel W. Secularization of American Education. Pp.160. Price, 
$1.50. New York: Teachers' College, Columbia University, 1912. 

Bussell, F. W. a New Government for the British Empire. Pp. xii, 108. Price, 
$1.25. New York: Longmans, Green and Company, 1912. 

Colby, F. M. The Neio International Year Book for the Year 1912. Pp. 882. 
Price, $5.00. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1913. 

Common School and the Negro American, The. Pp. 140. Price, 75 cents. 

Atlanta: The Atlanta University Press. 

Anyone who wishes to know about present educational opportunities for 
Negroes will find this study very helpful. It gives in concise form information 
with reference to conditions in the various states. 

Devereaux, Roy. Aspects of Algeria. Pp. xi, 315. Price, $3.50. New York: 

E. P. Button and Company, 1912. 

One-third of the volume is taken up with descriptions of a traveler's first 
impression of the country and a sketch of its varied history. The rest of the 
volume discusses the French occupation and its results. Though the style is 
sketchy this latter portion is interesting and instructive. The results of the 
detailed statistical studies of the colonial office are presented in summary and 
a good description is given of the progress made in encouraging immigration, 
promoting irrigation and establishing security for property. 

Though the material accomplishments of the republic receive unqualified 
praise the author like most English writers sees much to criticise in the manner 
in which the improvements are accomplished. Least to be defended is the horde 
of prefects, subprefects and officers of various other grades which the republic 
has introduced to preserve uniformity of organization. Everything is planned 
too much on the model of Paris. The policy of granting subventions for the 
development of southern Algeria the author regards as unfortunate, though a 
similar long continued policy of "grants in aid" to islands in the West Indies 
shows that English practice at least until recently, bore no strong contrast to 
that of France. The author believes that the arrangement by which Great 
Britain in 1904 gave France a free hand in West Africa in return for the surren- 
der of unimportant fishing priviliges in Newfoundland and a free hand in Egypt 



Book Department 243 

was a bad blunder on the part of the English foreign office. A brief chapter on 
Tunis shows its relation to Algeria and the importance of Italian immigration. 
Though Morocco, Algiers and Tunis are destined to be under the political 
protection of the tricolor, the economic possession of the land, it is asserted 
will fall to men of Spanish and Italian blood. The volume contains an excel- 
lent map of Algiers and Tunis. 

Button, Samuel T. and SneddenD. The Administration of Public Education 
in the United States. Pp. x, 614. Price, $2.00. New York: Macmillan 
Company, 1912. 

GoDDARD, Henry H. The Kallikak Family. Pp. xv, 121. Price, $1.50. New 
York: Macmillan Company, 1912. 

Gould, C. P. The Land System in Maryland, 1720-1763. Pp. vii, 101. Balti- 
more: Johns Hopkins Press, 1913. 

Griffith, W. L. The Dotninion of Canada. Pp. x, 450. Price, $3.00. Boston: 

Little, Brown and Company, 1912. 

Mr. Griffith divides his book into a large number of short chapters each of 
which contains a concise essay on some phase of Canadian development or 
life. The first portion which traces the history of Canada and the relations 
with the mother country shows a touch of the feeling of rivalry if not of resent- 
ment toward the United States which still influences many Canadians. The 
latter three-fourths of the book however, abound with praise for those who 
make up the American Invasion, which has done so much to transform Canada's 
agriculture, industry and social and political conditions. Like all other larger 
British colonies the great development of the Dominion still lies in the future. 
For this reason the chapters discussing agricultural lands, fishing, mining and 
forest resources are especially interesting. No one of the majority of Americans 
who still look upon Canada as a land whose possibilities are narrowly restricted 
by a long severe winter can read these pages without an increased appreciation 
of our northern neighbor. 

In this time when our own governments are undergoing so thorough an 
inspection by public opinion the chapters dealing with the organization of 
the public powers are no less interesting. The relations with England furnish 
the basis for a valuable comparison with the expedients adopted and to be 
adopted for the government of our own outlying possessions. The adaptation 
of the parliamentary system to the provinces, the peculiar division of powers 
between central and local governments, and the practice of "executive 
disallowance" all furnish instructive comparisons with our own institutions. 
Equally important and little known to citizens of the United States are the 
extensive governmental activities of Canada for popularizing the telegraph 
and telephone service, improving transportation, facilitating the settlement 
of labor disputes and promoting the establishment of minimum wage scales 
in the cities. Throughout the book the author has made an effort to present 
the latest governmental statistics to enforce his argument. 



244 The Annals of the American Academy 

Haynes, G. E. The Negro at Work in New York City. Pp. 158. New Yor 
Longmans, Green and Company, 1912. 

Henderson, L. J. The Fitness of the Environment. Pp. 317. Price, $1.50. 
• New York: Macmillan Company, 1913. 

In recent years we have heard a great deal about the adaptation of living 
organisms to the physical environment. That this is really a reciprocal rela- 
tionship so that it is quite as proper to speak of the fitness of the environment 
is rarely suggested. Yet this is the thesis of the author as indicated by the 
subtitle: "An Inquiry into the Biological Significance of the Properties of 
Matter." The result is a most intensely interesting and suggestive volume. 

Fitness, the Environment, Water, Carbonic Acid, the Ocean, Chemistry 
of the Three Elements, the Argument, Life and the Cosmos are the chapter 
headings. 

Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen are set forth as the three chief factors on which 
life depends — indeed with little question as the only elements making life pos- 
sible. Their multitudinous forms and power of change are of vast significance. 
The general student will find some most stimulating ideas in the discussion of 
water. 

The last two chapters are really devoted to a discussion of vitalism vs. 
mechanism. "There are no other compounds which share more than a small 
part of the fitness of water and carbonic acid; no other elements which share 
those of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen." The author believes that mechanism 
must win the day and that the supposed role of vitalism (despite Bergson) 
grows daily smaller. 

This is a significant and striking study. 

HiGGiNSON, John H. Tariffs at Work. Pp. xiv, 136. Price, 2/. London: P 

S. King and Son, 1913. 

This little book, in which the author has purposely refrained from making 
any reference to the economic and political aspects of the tariff problem, 
presents an outline of practical tariff' administration, with especial reference 
to the United States and Canada. The tariff systems in operation in the diff'er- 
ent countries are briefly described, and the attempt is made, from a non- 
partisan viewpoint, to analyze their comparative advantages and disadvan- 
tages. The analysis, however, has hardly been sufficiently thorough to justify 
the conclusions drawn. For example, the conclusion is reached, in a short 
chapter on ad valorem and specific duties, in which only one page is devoted to 
a discussion of compound duties, and four pages to a discussion of specific 
duties, that the balance of advantage, from the standpoint of scientific tariff 
administration, lies on the side of specific duties. 

Holmes, Arthur. The Conservation of a Child. Pp.345. Price, $1.25. Phila- 
delphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1912. 



Book Department 245 

HowERTH, Ira W. IForfc and Li/e. Pp.278. Price, $1.50. New York : Sturgis 

and Walton Company, 1913. 

Among those who purpose to teach economic and social doctrines, none has 
a clearer view of the social element in the problem than Professor Howerth. 
Perhaps he may err by overstatement, but surely no one can accuse him of any • 
illegitimate relations with the hidebound individualism of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. Professor Howerth sees the importance of wealth; he realizes the signifi- 
cance of competition in any well-organized scheme of life; but at the same time 
he recognizes the changes in the past few decades as point ng toward a new 
era, in which the social ideal will dominate individual caprice, and in which 
competition will have given plape to well-directed cooperation. Work and Life 
strikes a harmonious note in the great world outline of social advance. 

KosER, R. Friedrich der Grosse. Pp.533. Stuttgart: T. G. Cotta's Son. 

McVey, Frank L. The Making of a Town. Pp. 221. Price, $1.00. Chicago: 

A. C. McClurg and Company, 1913. 

In an easy, chatty style, the author has presented, amateurishly enough, 
the problems involved in town-climbing. The subjects ordinarily treated have 
been fully covered, yet one cannot but feel after laying down the book that it 
lacks bookishness and authority. For the beginner the book may prove use- 
ful; for the student of social science it carries no message. 

Moll, Albert. The Sexual Life of the Child. Pp.xv,339. Price, $1.75. New 
York : Macmillan Company, 1912. 

Murdoch, John G. Economics as the Basis of Laving Ethics. Pp. x, 373. Price, 

$2.00 Troy: Allen Book and Printing Company, 1913. 

The author, a former mental science fellow and now a professor of the 
English language, has attempted in this volume to cover the two fields of ethics 
and economics. Nor is he content with a narrow interpretation of the terms. 
The economic phases of history; the development of property theory; distribu- 
tion theory; the ethics of Kant; economic determinism, and a minute analysis 
of the leading writers on political economy, make up the groundwork of his 
study. The author's basis in study has apparently been of the broadest, 
exceeded in breadth only by the extent of his ambition. Yet his statements, 
in so far as they concern economics, bespeak the letter, rather than the spirit 
of the things which he describes. Although he knows the text that he has 
conned, the wherefore lies in a realm beyond his ken. The book itself is loosely 
written, extremely general, and sometimes even careless in statement. His 
decision to place "the substance or a summary of the passages referred to in 
single quotation marks," is typical of this attitude. Lacking, as the author 
does, any intimate knowledge of the subjects with which he deals, and likewise 
of the art of bookmaking, the present volume fails completely either as a 
scientific or a readable statement of the relation which it purports to discuss. 



246 The Annals of the American Academy 

Myers, Philip V. History as Past Ethics. Pp. xii, 287. Price, $1.50 Bos- 
ton: Ginn and Company, 1913. 

In the field of historical literature the name of the author of this volume 
is a synonym for accuracy and sound scholarship. His vividness of style, 
clearness of description, and sense of perspective have earned for his work an 
international reputation. After thirty years of general historical writing he 
has entered a specific field and produced a volume which lacks none of the charm 
of his previous writings. The history of past ethics is a narrative and not an 
interpretation. It is no effort to invade the field of the philosophy of ethics, 
but a serious effort to view the subject historically and thereby supply the 
material for inductive studies. It seeks to supplement rather than to supplant 
such writings as those of Westermarck and Hobhouse. This accounts for the 
apparent lack of causes assigned for varied and changing moral ideas, codes and 
standards among the different races of mankind and among the same races at 
different epochs. The book is not without practical aim as regards either the 
service history may render to theoretical science or to practical social service. 
It is difficult to determine at one reading whether teachers of history or of ethics 
will find the book of greatest service. It will undoubtedly be suggestive and 
stimulating to both. 

Orriss, W. G. The National Health Insurance Act. Pp.20. Price, 6d. Lon- 
don: P. S. King and Son, 1913. 

Parsons, Elsie C. The Old- Fashioned Woman — Primitive Fancies about the 

Sex. Pp. viii, 373. Price, $1.50. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1913. 

Mrs. Parsons gives us in her Old-Fashioned Woman an interesting and valu- 
able enumeration of the primitive ideas attached to woman in the various 
stages of civilization. Beginning with the creation of woman, she goes on to 
babyhood, the girl as a debutante, engaged, on her honeymoon, unwed, and 
about to become that fearsome phenomenon so long called the "old maid," 
married and a mother, widowed, and divorced. She characterizes her work 
and play, her dress, her value, and other ear marks as she humorously calls 
them, her value to the other sex and her sphere and place in the hierarchies. 
At each of these various phases she draws attention to the prevailing super- 
stitions governing the conduct and actions of woman. 

The primitive custom of the savage and the foolish superstition of our day 
are shown alike in their true color and perspective. We see woman as she has 
been for centuries, a creature so custom-bound that it has been almost impos- 
sible, until recently, for her to express her real self. 

The book is carefully and sanely written, with exhaustive reference, index 
and table, giving location of primitive peoples. It is well worth a thorough 
perusal. 

Peabodt, R. E. Merchant Venturers of Old Salem. Pp. 168. Price, $2.00. 

Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1912. 

Mr. Peabody gives a pleasing account of the commercial ventures of the 
Derby's, the family of Salem merchants, who, during the eighteenth century, 
built up an extensive foreign trade with Europe and the Indies. The good 



Book Department 247 

description of the peculiar organization of the foreign trade of the period makes 
the work highly instructive; and the delightful flavor of romance contained in 
the story of the adventurous life of the enterprising New England skippers 
keeps the interest of the reader constantly aroused. 

Penson, T. H. The Economics of Everyday Life. Pp. xiii, 176. Price, $1.00. 

New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1913. 

This book is strictly elementary in character. It would hardly prove 
acceptable as a text-book, as it contains no treatment of such important topics, 
as banking, international trade, taxation, labor problems, or railways. It 
might, however, be of interest to teachers of the fundamental principles of 
economics, and may possibly be found useful to business men, who have only a 
Tmited opportunity to take up the study of economics. But even for this class 
of readers, it is, as indicated in the preface, to be regarded merely as a stepping 
stone to more advanced study. 

PiGOU, A. C. Wealth and Welfare. Pp. xxxi, 488. Price, S3.50. New York: 
Macmillan Company, 1912. 

Ray, p. Orman. An Inlroduction to Political Parties and Practical Politics. 

Pp. xiii, 493. Price, $1.50. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1913. 

The contents of this volume are divided into four parts: Present-Day 
National Parties; Nominating Methods; Campaigns and Elections, and The 
Party in Power. The volume is most inclusive in its contents, covering practi- 
cally every phase of the organization and methods of political parties, and also 
such questions as civil service, recall, legislative procedure, gerrymandering, 
log-rolling, legislative reference libraries, initiative and referendum, presi- 
dential preference primaries, publicity laws, remedial legislation as to party 
receipts and expenditures, "grandfather" clauses, speakership and committee 
system, direct elections, the short ballot, and national, state and local commit- 
tees. Party machinery and campaign methods, however, are given but a short 
chapter each. This under-emphasis is probably the only criticism that can be 
made of the book from the point of view of a complete text-book. 

Each of the chapters covers the usual material well and pointedly, though 
there is no distinctive contribution in any part of the volume. It does bring 
together, however, all the material on the subject and will make an ideal text- 
book for introductory classes in political parties and party methods. 

RoBBiNS, E. C. Selected Articles on the Commission Plan of Municipal Govern- 
ment. (3d and enlarged edition.) Pp. xxix, 180. Price, SI. 00. Minne- 
apolis: H. W. Wilson Company, 1912. 

This handbook contains the arguments for and against commission govern- 
ment, a detailed bibliography and extended excerpts from the literature on both 
sides of the question. The excerpts include the general discussion of thesub- 
j ect from L. S. Rowe's Problems in City Government and William Bennett Munro's 
"Galveston Plan of City Government," in the National Municipal Review, 
1907. 



248 The Annals of the American Academy 

The affirmative discussion includes articles by E. R. Sherman, E. R- 
Cheesborough, E. S. Bradford and liberal excerpts from Des Moines papers- 
The negative discussion includes excerpts from the works of Rear-Admiral F. 
E. Chadwick, Prof. F. I. Herriott, C. O. Holly, W. W. Wise, and liberal excerpts 
from Plain Talk of Des Moines. 

Sabt, R. S. Railroad Legislation in Minnesota, 1849 to 1875. Pp. 188. St. 

Paul: The Volkszeitung Company, 1912. 

This work on railroad legislation in Minnesota, which was submitted as 
a Doctor's thesis at the University of Pennsylvania, contains a full account 
of early railroad regulation in Minnesota, of early land grants and other public 
aid to railroads in Minnesota, and of the granger legislation and movement 
of the seventies. The discussion of the granger movement, which is especially 
complete, is not confined to Minnesota, but is a study of the entire movement. 
It contains an interesting statement of the motives of the grangers, the legis- 
lation enacted, and its results. 

Thompson, C. W. and Warber, G. P. Social and Economic Survey of a Rural 
Township in Southern Minnesota. Pp. v, 75. Minneapolis: University of 
Minnesota, 1913. 

Underwood, F. M. United Italy. Pp. xiv, 360. Price, $3.50. New York: 

George H. Doran Company, 1912. 

Though this book is interestingly written and presents material not else- 
where easily obtainable in English, it does not satisfy one who asks for an 
account of the foundations of Italian life. Perhaps it is to be expected that 
writers on Latin peoples should reflect the most prominent surface characteris- 
tics of the nations which they describe but it is unfortunate that outsiders at 
least cannot oftener see the relative unimportance of political changes and the 
great meaning of economic and social movements and the laws which aim to 
direct them. Ten of the author's fifteen chapters are devoted to a description 
of party changes, foreign policy, the royal family and the relations of church 
and state. Three others discuss the progress in science and the fine arts. Only 
two, an excellent chapter on south Italy and a summary called Italian Progress, 
treat the general social and economic conditions of the kingdom. There is no 
adequate treatment of the growth of Italian industries, the problem of land 
holding, education, sanitation, and the organization of peasant or middle class 
life. There is a fair description of the work of Crispi, especially of his financial 
operations. The terrorism of the Mafia in Sicily and of the Camorra in southern 
Italy is well discussed. The excellent contrasts drawn in the chapter showing 
the differences between Italy of a generation ago and of the present time make 
one wish that this portion on commerce, industry, agriculture and population 
had been given the prominence it deserves. 

Usher, Roland G. Pan Germanism. Pp. viii, 314. Price, $1.75. Boston: 

Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1913. 

Around the projects of pan Germanism the author groups a highly interest- 
ing discussion of the present alliances of the great powers. The marshalling 



Book Department 249 

of facts is skillfully done, done with such facility in fact that the careful reader 
constantly makes reservations as to the accuracy of conclusions drawn. Indeed 
a large part of the argument can not fail to be unauthoritative since no one has 
access to sources of information which would allow the categorical statement of 
the motives impelling the various powers. This must of necessity be the case 
nor does the author claim to make a definite analysis of the movements he de- 
scribes. Accepting these limitations, however, the student of international 
affairs will find this a book of absorbing interest. The author is peculiarly 
fortunate in placing himself successfully in the position of one arguing the case 
of each power whose ambitions and motives he has under discussion. He por- 
trays the unfortunate position of Germany, a country which entered the race 
too late to secure either colonies of exploitation or settlement, but which has 
a population and trade rapidly expanding for which she seeks an outlet. 
England, France, Russia and the United States, the great colonial powers, find 
themselves forced into alliance against Germany with her allies Austria and 
Italy. The control of the world, especially of the east, is the prize in the com- 
petition. Recent developments in Morocco, Tripoli, Persia and Central 
America are only incidents in the same world wide play for universal dominion. 
The Moroccan incident was a defeat for pan Germanism, the Tripolitan war 
tipped the scale in the other direction but the Balkan struggle again turns the 
balance to the disadvantage of the Triple Alliance. The money power is the 
controlling factor in determining peace and war and therefore in determining 
the success of pan German ambitions. On the whole the outlook for realiza- 
tion of German ambitions is gloomy. The sweep of the comparisons and the 
acuteness with which the complicated elements of present day world politics 
are analyzed make this a book in which no one can fail to be interested even 
though the basis of the argument is and must be largely conjecture. 

Vice Commission of Philadelphia, The. A Report on Existing Conditions 
loith Recommendations to the Hon. Rudolph Blankenburg, Mayor of Phila- 
delphia. Pp. viii, 164. Philadelphia: The Vice Commission, 1913. 

Walter, H. E. Genetics: An Introduction to the Study of Heredity. Pp. xiv, 



272. 



Price, $1.50. New York: Macmillan Company, 1913. 



This is to be rated as one of the very best books in this field. It contains 
little rambling discussion but gives in a clean-cut and concise way evidence thus 
far gathered and a statement of different theories. It is not too technical for 
one unversed in biology though such a person will not read it rapidl3^ 

The chapter headings will indicate the contents: The Carriers of the Herit- 
age, Variation, Mutation, The Inheritance of Acquired Characters, The Pure 
Line, Segregation and Dominance, Reversion to Old Types and the Making of 
New Ones, Blending Inheritance, The Determination of Sex, The Application 
to Man, and Human Conservation. 

The volume contains many excellent diagrams and illustrations. In view of 
the steadily increasing interest in these problems such a summary of the work 
of the leading students is most welcome. 



250 The Annals of the American Academy 

Weatherford, W. D. Negr& Life in the South. Pp. 181; Present Forces in 
Negro Progress. Pp. 191. Price, 50 cents each. New York: Associa- 
tion Press, 1912. 

These two hand-books were published by the author in response to a 
demand for definite, concrete and usable information concerning the Negro 
in the South, for use in Y. M. C. A. classes studying social problems. The 
author has gathered with considerable care statistical and other information 
concerning the Negro's progress and general conditions throughout the South. 
As the titles indicate, the first is a study of the economic, social and religious 
conditions of the Negroes, and contains not only the description, but the 
explanation and interpretation of such conditions with suggested remedies 
for their improvement. 

The second volume is a description of the changes taking place in popu- 
lation, the development of race pride and leadership, together with the story 
of the Negro's progress in farming and in industry, and the general develop- 
ment of educational and religious life. It would be difficult to find an equal 
amount of information without the survey of an extended literature. 

The books are not only well adapted to their purpose but supply admirably 
the demand for facts and general information. 

Webb, WalterL. The Economics of Railroad Construction. (2dEd.) Pp. viii, 
347. Price, $2.50. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1912. 
Because of changes made by the Interstate Commerce Commission in the 
classification of operating expenses since the publication of the first edition 
of his work, Professor Webb has found it advisable to offer a second edition, in 
which his computations will conform to the new classification. With the revision 
necessitated by the changes in accounting, the use of statistics collected since 
the former edition appeared, and numerous other modifications introduced 
for the purpose of making comparisons or explaining the significance of late 
changes in recent railroad conditions in the United States, the author has given 
us practically an entirely new work. The plan of the book is the same as that 
used in the first edition. From a skillful presentation of the financial and legal, 
the operating, and the physical aspects of the problem of railway building and 
operation, certain conclusions are derived which form the basis of general prin- 
ciples for the guidance of constructing and operating engineers. 



REVIEWS 

Beard, Charles A. An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the 
United States. Pp. vii, 330. Price, $2.25. New York: Macmillan Com- 
pany, 1913. 
The author modestly calls this work "a long and arid survey — partaking of 

the nature of a catalogue." Far from being arid, it is replete with human 

interest and compact with information of importance to every student of 

American history or of political science. 



Book Department 251 

Professor Beard discusses, through the medium of the great mass of original 
data in the treasury department at Washington, the economic interests of the 
framers of the Constitution; the economic and industrial movements back of 
the Constitution; the property safeguards in the election of delegates; the 
economic interests and the political doctrines of the members of the convention ; 
the economics of the ratification and vote on the Constitution; the economic 
conflict over the ratification, as viewed b}' contemporaries. It is impossible 
here to make a critical analysis of the data submitted. It must suffice to say 
that, while admittedly fragmentary, it is yet as complete as could be expected 
in a single volume. 

Some of the most important conclusions reached are: "The movement for 
the Constitution of the United States was originated and carried through 
principally by four groups of personalty interests which had been adversely 
affected under the Articles of Confederation: money, public securities, manu- 
factures, and trade and shipping. The steps toward the formation of the Con- 
stitution were taken by a small and active group of men immediately interested 
through their personal possessions in the outcome of their labors." The prop- 
ertyless masses were excluded at the outset from participation in the work 
of framing the Constitution, and the members of the convention were, "with 
a few exceptions, immediately, directly, and personally interested in, and 
derived economic advantages from, the establishment of the new system." 

"The Constitution was essentially an economic document based upon the 
concept that the fundamental private rights of property are anterior to govern- 
ment and morally beyond the reach of popular majorities." 

"In the ratification of the Constitution, about three-fourths of the adult 
males failed to vote on the question, having abstained from the elections at 
which delegates to the state conventions were chosen, either on account of their 
indifference or their disfranchisement by property qualifications." 

"The Constitution was ratified by a vote of probably not more than one- 
sixth of the adult males." 

Clyde L. King. 
University of Pennsylvania. 

Hubbard, Arthur J. The Fate of the Empires Pp. xx, 22(). Price .S2.10. 

New York: Longmans, Green and Company, 1913. 

The author, in this volume, has in Part I attempted a rational analysis of 
the factors of progressive organic existence from the simplest life of the Proto- 
zoal organism to the ultimate achievements possible to man in society. 

Four stages are analyzed. Beginning with reflex action, the power of invol- 
untary response to external stimulus which facilitates individual survival, he 
passes speedily to the second stage, that of reflex action plus instinct. Instinct 
is defined as inherited inborn impulses, which are essential to racial survival. 
"Instinct is purely an appurtenance of race, acts in the interests of race, 
is inherited bj^ every gRneration, and again transmitted, securing the subordi- 
nation of the ind' vidual to the race. This gives rise to struggle, Malthusianism, 
natural selection. The third stage of that of reflex action plus instinct, plus 



252 The Annals of the American Academy 

reason. Pure reason is self-interested rationalism of the extreme sort. "Pure 
reason, the enemy of the race, knows only the interest of the individual, or 
rather of society." Reason overthrows instinct, eliminates competition and 
struggle, reduces the birth rate even to the point of racial extinction for the 
advantage of the individual and present society. Th's is the present danger 
confronting society. 

The fate of empires, that is, of modern civilization, depends upon a recon- 
ciliation of instinct and reason in a fourth stage, viz: reflex action, plus in- 
stinct, plus reason, plus the religious motive. The religious motive is "the con- 
scious relation to the infinite." It transforms personal advantage into duty, 
and provides an ultrarational sanction for human conduct. 

Part II is devoted to an analysis of the part religion h is played in the 
history of great nations. 

The strength of the book lies in the analysis of Part I; its weakness, in the 
peculiar conception of religion, which makes its obediences to an external 
authority rather than the "faith in the possibilities of life" as illustrated in 
the following: "A permanent civilization may indeed come, but can only do 
so as an accident of self sacrifice that is offered upon the altars of the Most 
High." A more optimistic outlook would have resulted had the author adhered 
more closely to the concept of religion presented by Benjamin Kidd's Social 
Evolution, without which the author declares his book could not have been 
written. 

J. P. LiCHTENBERGER. 

University of Pennsylvania. 

Knoop, Dougl.\s. Principles and Methods of Municipal Trading. Pp. xvii, 
409. Price, $3.25. New York: Macmillan Company, 1912. 
This is a critical analysis of the scope and development of the adminis- 
trative, financial and selling policies, and the results of municipal trading in 
Engish cities. It is at all times analytical and critical. It contains criticisms 
that would be, no doubt, of great value to every trading community that has 
the problems of operation and ownership on its hands. A typical example of 
the author's point of view is in the following statement (p. 370): "To carry 
work eople at certain hours of the day at cost price or even less than cost price, 
in a town which is composed almost entirely of working-class people, is a sui- 
cidal policy to adopt." Such is probably "suicidal" from the point of view of 
maximum returns, but much could be said in favor of subsidizing workmen 
through good transit facilities and proper homes in lieu of subsidizing the capi- 
talist through a protective tariff. Not enough has as yet been made of the way 
England is keeping her manufactor"es and working people at home through the 
socialization of her tramway, gas, electric, water and other services. Minimum 
rates and maximum privileges in such utilities give to a workman facilities in 
social life that could never be secured in many American towns where the capi- 
talist is protected by a tariff and where the public utility concerns are allowed 
to exploit the community and social needs of the city. 



Book Department 253 

The author points out many places where municipal trading is weak, and 
where it could be improved. Thus he feels that better depreciation funds 
should be kept and that certain items frequently left out of the revenue ac- 
counts of trading departments should be included. Among these items he 
particularly discusses the cost of widening streets in connection with tramways, 
the cost of obtaining the original power to establish the trading department 
and a proper share of the general e.xpense. In the way of minimizing the draw- 
backs in municipal trading, he suggests the following: 

1. That the appointment of all employees be left entirely in the hands 
of the principal officials of the different departments, and that a recommenda- 
tion from a councillor disqualify any applicant. 

2. That the chairman of Councils Committee be given a salary in order to 
make it worth his while to give more time to the concern and in order to prevent 
overwork of councilmen. 

3. The payment of good salaries to the higher officials, especially by the trad- 
ing concerns of the smaller localities, as it usually takes more ability to make 
a small trading concern pay than a large one. 

His general conclusion as to municipal ownership and operation is : "Tak- 
ing all the attendant circumstances and conditions into consideration, munici- 
pal trading in itself cannot be regarded as a desirable institution; the manage- 
ment of industrial undertakings is not really a suitable sphere of activity for 
a local authority. Nevertheless, in certain cases, it may offer a reasonable 
prospect of serving the general public better than private enterprise, and in 
consequence th? municipalization of particular industries may be justified. 
These industries are such as have a strong tendency to become monopolies, 
which is generally true of tramways and of water, gas and electricity supply 
undertakings." 

Clyde L. King. 

Uyiiversity of Pennsylvania. 

Lawton, Lancelot. The Empires of the Far East. 2 vols. Pp. xvii, 1598, 

with folding map. Price, $7.50. Boston: Small, Maynard and Company, 

1912. 

These two large volumes written in the style of a commentator on current 
events contain much that is already familiar to those interested in the East. 
The reader cannot help feeling that the strength of the work would have been 
much greater if so much space had not been given to quotations and material 
drawn from McKenzie, P. B. L. Weale and Hulbert. Frequent repetitions of 
arguments, for which the author apologizes also tend to mar the symmetry of 
the descriptions. It is to be regretted that the statistics seldom cover a 
period later than 1907. Aside from these defects Mr. Lawton's work deserves 
high praise. He has traveled widely in the East, has an unusually intimate con- 
nection with certain episodes of the Russo-Japanese war and gives us first hand 
estimates of the consequences of that conflict after the passing of a decade. 

The greater part of the work centers about the progress and prospects of 
the Japanese. Mr. Lawton thinks their performance in the war has been 



254 The Annals of the American Academy 

exaggerated, that they are by no means a nation of real stoics and that the 
advantage to Great Britain of the alliance with Japan may prove illusory. 
The steady onward march of Russia into Mongolia is described in a way which 
gives a good background for the developments in that region since the publica- 
tion of the book. Russian ambition in the northeast provinces seems likely to 
be disappointed though the riches of the fisheries, forests and mines of the Amur 
are as yet unappreciated by the outside world. Russia's long laid plans in 
double tracking the Trans-Siberian foretell a conflict in the future even more 
terrible than the Russo-Japanese war. Even if Manchuria and Korea finally 
fall to Japan, the author evidently believes that it is still not impossible that 
Russia may secure an outlet to a "warm water port" on the Chinese coast. 

The chapters on Japan proper contain a review of the empire's development 
and a criticism of its social system, financial operations and business morality. 
The division headed Manchuria contains as would be expected the best chapters 
on the present status of the international rivalry in the Far East. The discussion 
of the various railway projects is exceptionally valuable. The latter portion 
of the second volume contains a good account of the Chinese revolution. 

Chester Lloyd Jones. 
University of Wisconsin. 

Moore, J. R. H. An Industrial History of the American People. Pp. xiii, 496. 

Price, $1.25. New York: Macmillan Company, 1913. 

In the preface the author states that the aim of this book is to teach high 
school students to "weigh and consider" — to give them the training necessary 
for useful citizenship. It will consequently be fairest to judge the volume upon 
this basis rather than history, for history in the ordinary sense, political or 
industrial, it can scarcely be called. The book falls into two parts, of which 
the first with eight chapters deals with the colonial period, and the second with 
five chapters covers the nineteenth century. Each chapter takes up a single 
topic and develops it for the colonial or later period. Among these topics are 
fisheries, lumber, fur trade, agriculture, money, government, city problems, 
manufacturing, and transportation. As the treatment is very discursive, how- 
ever, no chapter is confined to the topic that gives it its title; for instance, in 
the chapter on agriculture the following topics are discussed: slave labor and 
cotton growing, agriculture in the north, river and canal transportation. Civil 
War, railroads, tariff, Hawaiian islands, department of agriculture, public 
lands, Canada. Agriculture is simply the starting point for a concatination 
of events that reminds one of Professor Loisette's celebrated memory system. 

The book is interesting, with much of incident and anecdote, and written 
for the high school student ; but it is questionable whether its study would leave 
the student with any clearly defined views as to the comparative importance 
of events in American history or their casual relations. Moreover the gaps left 
by a such a topical method are too large to be bridged by class discussion. 

E. L. BOGART. 

University of Illinois. 



Book Department 255 

Myers, Gtjstavus. History of the Supreme Court of the United States. Pp. 

823. Price, $2.00. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr and Company, 1912. 

Mr. Gustavus Myers, author of History of the Great American Fortunes, 
History of Public Franchises in New York City, etc., has here, in a spacious 
vo'ume, given the history of the supreme court of the United States as he sees 
it. He presents a comprehensive history of the development of capitalist 
resources, power and tactics, and of the great and continuing conflict of classes, 
in order to show the influences so persistently operating upon the m'nds and 
acts of the justices of the supreme court throughout its entire history. These 
influences are not venal but class influences, and were all the more effective 
for the very reason that the justices in question were not open to pecuniarily 
dishonest practices. From training, association, interest and prejudice, sub- 
merged in a permeating class environment, a fixed state of mind results. Upon 
conditions that the ruling class finds profitable to its aims, and advantageous 
to its power, are built codes of morality as well as of law. These codes are the 
reflections and agencies of class interests. 

The students in traditional history will find in the volume much material 
that will be new to them as well as much in method to criticise. Thus the author 
concludes that Jay resigned the chief justiceship of the United States supreme 
court solely in order that, by making a treaty with England, he might enhance 
his own financial interests and the pecuniary interests of his associates. All of 
this might be true, but at the best motives cannot be shown by implications. 

A characteristic statement showing the phraseology and point of view of 
the author is: "Both Burr and Hamilton were engaged in extensive land grab- 
bing. Hamilton in many different directions." He proves from many records 
that Burr and Hamilton were extensive land owners. Those who have always 
found it difficult to reconcile Hamilton the young radical, at the time of the 
beginning of the American Revolution, with Hamilton the reactionary, at the 
time of the adoption of the Constitution and following, can find ample explana- 
tion in the author's treatment of Hamilton's family alignments and his many 
financial interests. The author, always socialistic in his point of view, com- 
pletes his seven hundred and eighty-six pages with the prophecy: "The next 
application of the 'rule of reason' will be made by the organized working class 
in its own interests to the end that it will expropriate its expropriators." 

Clyde L. King. 

University of Pennsylvania. 

Wallace, Alfred R. Social Environment and Moral Progress. Pp. vi, 181. 

Price, $1.25. New York: Cassell and Company, 1913. 

This is a thought provoking little volume, which is likely to start many dis- 
cussions. Dr. Wallace challenges the prevalent belief that there has been great 
advance in the realm of morality as a result of civilization. He points out 
many of the bad conditions at the present time, and seems to believe that 
through alcoholism, suicide, war, etc., we are falling far short of the ideals of 
our civilization. This represents the first part of the book. 



256 The Annals of the American Academy 

The second part is theoretical, beginning with a discussion of natural 
selection among animals, proceeding to the influence of the mind as modifying 
selection, a survey of heredity and environment, with a survey of possible 
methods of improvement in the chapter entitled Progress Through Selection. 
In this he points out great dangers involved in any eugenics movement that 
would interfere with comparative freedom in the selecting of mates. He 
is much more favorably inclined towards what has been called negative 
eugenics — the elimination of the obviously unfit. Dr. Wallace has frequently 
been quoted as being pessimistic. This does not appear to be fair. He does not 
think that human nature is perfect but that "it is influenced by fundamental 
laws which under reasonably just and economic conditions will automatically 
abolish all these evils." He believes that a better educational system would 
in itself raise the average age of marriage; that educational and economic 
equality of the sexes would more nearly equalize their numbers, and that in- 
crease of brain work would automatically diminish fertility. Thus the whole 
social structure would be in better condition. Society, then, has created its own 
evil conditions, largely by over-emphasis in competition. "That system, must 
therefore be radically changed into one of brotherly cooperation and coordi- 
nation for the equal good of all." 

The book deserves careful reading. 



Carl Kelsey. 



University of Pennsylvania. 



White, Andrew D. The First Hague Conference. Pp. vi, 123. Boston: The 

World Peace Foundation, 1912. 

CnoATE, Joseph H. The Two Hague Conferences. Pp. xiv, 109. Price, 
$1.00. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1913. 

Hull, William I. The New Peace Movement. Pp. ix, 21G. Boston: The 
World Peace Foundation, 1912. 

Those interested in the peace movement will welcome the reprint from Dr. 
White's interesting autobiography of those chapters dealing with his epochal 
work at the first Hague conference. These chapters form such a frank and 
intimate record of Dr. White's experience at the Hague in 1899 that they fur- 
nish a very valuable source of our knowledge of the inside workings of the 
conference, more particularly of the part played by Germany and the United 
States. However, they are so well known to students of the subject that an 
extended review of them is scarcely necessary. 

The two lectures on the first and second Hague conferences which form 
the subject matter of Ambassador Choate's little volume entitled The Two 
Hague Conferences, have also considerable value, though they by no means 
compare in interest or importance with Dr. White's revelations. Their value 
is enhanced by Dr. Scott's introduction and the notes at the end of the volume. 

A perusal of the sixteen addresses and essays by Dr. Hull published under 
the title The New Peace Movement, leaves various and somewhat conflicting 
impressions. 



Book Department 257 

The reviewer is a peace advocate and a strong admirer of the work of the 
Hague conferences, but he seriously doubts the wisdom of indiscriminate and 
exaggerated praise of their achievements. It may be that the "Hague confer- 
ences are to international law what the industrial revolution of the eighteenth 
and nineteenth centuries was to human industry," but why claim for these 
conferences the solution of problems and the accomplishment of results which 
they have not even seriously undertaken? 

It is at least questionable whether the Hague conferences have •'canalized 
warfare" or very stringently "cribbed, cabined, and confined the belligerent," 
or whether the "advance registered" by them "in curbing those modern demons 
of the sea" — otherwise known as submarine mines— has been very appreciable. 
The Hague conventions dealing with the "knotty problems of the rights of 
neutrals on land and sea" are very defective and inadequate, and aerial war- 
fare has in no wise been prohibited even until the end of the next conference, 
as claimed on pp. 14 and 37. In a word, it must be said that the address treating 
of "The Achievements of the two Hague Conferences" is very uncritical. 

Dr. Hull's addresses are those entitled "The Abolition of Trial by Battle" 
and "The International Grand Jury." These constitute a valuable contribu- 
tion to the literature of the peace movement. In a brief essay on "International 
Police vs. National Armaments," he exposes the "false and pernicious analogy 
implying that armaments are equivalent to police forces." Much useful infor- 
mation may be found in the essays on "The Instrumentalities" and "Literature 
of the Peace Movement." 

The work contains some good phrases and characterizations. For example, 
Dr. Hull calls Theodore Roosevelt the "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of the Peace 
Movement" and speaks of the "barracks philosophy of peace." If "twogreat 
Americans, Elihu Root and Joseph H. Choate, were the Moses and Aaron who 
led the second conference into the path toward the promised land," Philander 
Chase Knox has probably disappointed the hope of the author that he would 
prove to be the "Joshua" capable of leading us across the Jordan. 

On the whole. Dr. Hull's little book is both a source of gratification and 
disappointment. The addresses are very uneven, though it must be said that 
even the disappointing features of the work are not wholly devoid of interest. 

Amos S. Hershey. 
Indiana University. 

Wilson, Woodrow. The New Freedom. Pp. viii, 294. Price, $1.00. New 

York: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1913. 

This is a book which would be worth reading even if it were not the work 
of the President of the United States. Mr. William Bayard Hale has taken the 
more suggestive portions of President Wilson's campaign speeches, many of 
them extemporaneous, and put them together so well that they make a con- 
secutive book. The title suggests wel! enough the central theme. Th speeches 
themselves were read day by day as the papers reported them, and so it would 
be waste of time to undertake a summary of contents, in a brief note. Some 
general comments, and mention of a few details must suffice. 



258 The Annals of the American Academy 

One is tempted to institute comparison with Mr. Wilson's earlier works, 
and to judge the book as a scientific contribution. Obviously the comparison 
is unfair. It is as a collection of campaign speeches that the book must be 
judged. Such overstatements as this (p. 35): "Laws have never altered the 
facts; laws have always necessarily expressed the facts," would be subject 
to criticism in a treatise; in an extemporaneous speech they are to be taken 
as merely an emphatic statement of a principle which a popular audience would 
see most clearly if it were not too carefully qualified. It is surprising, how- 
ever, how few illustrations of this sort one finds, surprising how accurately the 
scholar has spoken in the easy phrase of the campaigner. As compared with 
other records of campaign speeches, the book must take high rank. 

Some of Mr. Wilson's speeches were criticized in the campaign because 
inaccurately reported, and the volume is welcome for its corrections of these 
points. Thus, Mr. Wilson was criticized for having said that the best govern- 
ment is that which does the least governing. Reference to pp. 283-284 shows 
that he said it only for the purpose of qualifying it in the manner which the 
student of his scientific writings would expect. 

The following passage expresses the spirit of the book better than anything 
else: "I feel nothing so much as the intensity of the common man. I can pick 
out in any audience the men who are at ease in their fortunes: they are seeing 
a public man go through his stunts. But there are in every crowd men who are 
not doing that — men who are listening as if they were waiting to hear if there 
were somebody who could speak the thing that is stirring in their own hearts 
and minds. It makes a man's heart ache to think that he cannot be sure that 
he is doing it for them" (p. 104). But the appeal is not alone to the moral 
nature of the common man. Mr. Wilson believes that the captain of indusLry 
is not impervious to the moral awakening of the country, exhorts him as well 
as warns him, and points humorously to the change that took place in the big 
corporations of New Jersey during his administration — "it was like a Sunday 
school, the way they obeyed the laws." 

In the main, the book deals with general principles. Ends to be sought are 
made clear; ways and means, as a rule, are made less definite. But the reason is 
clear. Mr. Wilson was in a happy position in the campaign. His election was 
as sure as anything human could well be. By leaving his program somewhat 
indefinite, he gave himself additional time for consultation and reflection, and 
for the wisdom that comes with the further developments in the facts that he 
has to deal with. Few Presidents indeed have entered the office with so small 
a load of impedimenta not merely of political promises, but also of detailed 
policies. While this may have detracted from the interest of the speeches in 
some measure, there can be little question as to the wisdom of the course. But 
there are many more definite statements than the newspaper reports led one 
to think. 

B. M. Anderson, Jr. 

Columbia University. 



Book Department 259 

Wise, B. R. The Conunomoealih of Auslralia. Pp. xv, 355. Price, $3.00. 

Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 

One naturally expects an author who writes on Australia to emphasize the 
part which the government plays in the life of the people, and Mr. Wise does 
so. The first third of the book contains three chapters on the physical charac- 
teristics of the country and six on the lands, education and labor policy of the 
"paradise of the working man." There are many indications in this portion 
of the work that the author is not free from the enthusiasm of those who live 
in new countries. It is rather startling to read of the great Pacific continent 
that "no area of equal dimensions contains so much wealth or in greater vari- 
ety," and that it "dominates the Pacific" and is "placed astride of the trade 
route between America and China .... is not only the outlying frontier of 
England .... but is also the ultimate heir of Java." But except where 
overcolored by patriotism these chapters are interesting and instructive. 

Much the better portion of the book is found in its latter two-thirds, 
though here too the reader has occasion to feel that a more critical attitude 
would have added to its value. The chapters on the struggle for Union are 
excellent. There is nowhere presented in semipopular form a more readable 
account of the efforts by which the provincial prejudices at first blocked union 
and later yielded to its advantages. The discussion of the government and its 
workings is also well done, doubtless reflecting the author's legal training and 
his experience as attorney-general of New South Wales. The chapter on the 
Judiciary is especially interesting to Americans because of the adaptation of 
the organization of the supreme court of the United States. 

In the field of legislation Australia has done much to arouse our interest. 
Mr. Wise reviews not only the laws but their workings. His treatment of tariff 
policies bears especially on the subject of imperialism. Other subjects covered 
are, the trust problem, immigration of colored races, anti-strike laws, eight 
hour day laws, legislation for early closing of factories, minimum wage laws, 
laws favoring labor unions and providing old age and invalidity pensions. Most 
readers will find these chapters the most interesting and valuable in the book. 

Chester Lloyd Jones. 
University of Wisconsin. 



INDEX 



Agricultural and Mechanical College 
of Greensboro, N. C, the, 142. 

Agriculture, negroes in, 20, 54. 

Alabama, movement of white and col- 
ored population in, 5. 

State Normal School, the, 212. 

American Association of Educators of 
Colored Youth, the, 132. 

Federation of Labor, admission 

of negroes to, 114. 

Negro Academy, the, 134. 

Negro Historical Society, the. 



134. 
Arkansas, negro children in schools of, 

52; negro farmers in, 55. 
Armstrong Association, work of the, 

90. 

Baker, Ray Stannard. Problems of 
Citizenship, 93-104. 

Ballot, attitude of the negro toward, 
100. 

Baltimore, negro population of, 24, 
81; negro schools in, 222. 

Banks, negro, in the United States, 
158. 

Baptist church, negro followers of, 61. 

Beaufort county, negro population 
of, 59; negro school attendance in, 
61. 

Betterment of the Negro in Phil- 
adelphia, THE Movement for the. 
John T. Emlen, 81-92. 

Brouoh, Charles Hillman. Work 
of the Commission of Southern Uni- 
versities on the Race Question, 47- 
57. 

Budgets, typical negro, 151, 157, 162. 



Caldwell, B. C. The Work of the 
Jeanes and Slater Funds, 173-176. 



Children in the Public Schools- of 
Philadelphia, Negro. Howard 
W. Odum, 186-208. 

Christensen, Niels. Fifty Years of 
Freedom: Conditions in the Sea 
Coast Regions, 58-66. 

Church, activities of the, for negro bet- 
terment, 71 ; as independent negro 
institution, 120; influence of, upon 
negroes, 50, 165; negro betterment, 
and the, 86; rise and importance of 
negro, 14; work of the negro, 25. 

Churches and Religious Condi- 
tions. J. J. Watson, Jr., 120-128. 

Churches, in Beaufort County, 61. 

Cities, Conditions among Negroes 
IN THE. George Edmund Haynes, 
105-119. 

Citizenship, Problems of. Ray 
Stannard Baker, 93-104. 

Citizenship, status of negro in, 93. 

Clarke, James B. The Negro and 
the Immigrant in the Two Americas, 
32-37. 

Colored Graduate Nurses National 
Association, the, 135. 

Commission on Southern Race Ques- 
tions, membership and purpose of, 
47. 

Convict lease system, attitude of 
National Association of Colored 
Women toward, 134; introduction 
of, in the South, 77. 

Cotton crop, in Beaufort district, 62. 

Country Farm Association, the, 136. 

Courts, justice toward negro in the, 
168. 

Crime, negro, prior to Civil War, 74. 

Criminality, decrease in negro, 75; 
factors of negro, in the South, 79. 

Criminality in the South, Negro. 
Monroe N. Work, 74-80. 



261 



262 



Index 



DiLLARD, James H., 47, 170, 217. 
Doctor, importance of colored, 141; 

professional standing of the negro, 

16. 
Domestic service, negroes in, 20. 
DuBois, W. E. BuRGHARDT. The 

Negro in Literature and Art, 233- 

237; see also 136. 

East North Central States, urban 
proportion of negroes in, 8. 

Education, amount expended on 
negro, in the South, 52; attitude of 
both races toward higher negro, 217 
changed attitude toward negro, 226 
factors facilitating negro, 209, 210 
importance of negro, 186; necessity 
of negro, 166; need of free, 101 ; need 
of higher, 18; progress of negro, 117, 
222, 225 ; Slater fund and higher, 174; 
Southern institutions for higher, 
211 ; Southern system of public, 215. 

Edwards, Thomas J. The Tenant 
System and Some Changes Since 
Emancipation, 38-46. 

Emlen, John T. The Movement for 
the Betterment of the Negro in 
Philadelphia, 81-92. 

Enfranchisement, attitude of South 
toward negro, 55. 

Florida Agricultural and Mechanical 
College, the, 212. 

Four-day plan of cropping, failure of, 
39. 

Freedman's Bureau, creation of, 209. 

Freedom, Fifty Years op. Condi- 
tions IN THE Sea Coast Regions. 
Niels Christensen, 58-66. 

Georgia, negro criminals in, 74. 
State Industrial College, the, 212. 

Hammond, L. H. The White Man's 
Debt to the Negro, 67-73. 

Hampton Normal School, the, 30, 176, 
215, 220. 



Haynes, George Edmund. Condi- 
tions Among Negroes in the Cities, 
105-119. 

High schools, negroes in, 191. 

Higher Education of Negroes in 
the United States. Edward T. 
Ware, 209-218. 

Hoffman, Frederick L., on negro death 
rate, 115. 

Home Life and Standards of Liv- 
ing, Negro. Robert E. Park, 147- 
163. 

Hookworm disease among negroes, 
54, 143. 

Housing, need for experiment station 
in negro, 73; the negro problem 
and, 53. 

Housing conditions, effect of, on ne- 
groes, 69; need for improvement of, 
72; results of poor, HI; tuberculosis 
and poor, 143. 

Illiteracy, among negro children, 183; 
among slaves, 177; decline of negro, 
22, 51, 183, 223; distribution of, in 
urban and rural population, 180; 
negro, in the North, 179; present 
problem of negro, 178; relative sta- 
tistics of, 179. 

Illiteracy in The United States, 
Negro. J. P. Lichtenberger, 177- 
185. 

Immigrant, attitude of, toward the 
negro, 35. 

Immigrant, the Negro and the, in 
the Two Americas. James B. 
Clarke, 32-37. 

Industrial Education and the Pub- 
lic Schools. Booker T. Washing- 
ton, 219-232. 

Industrial education, necessity of 
negro, 55. 

Industrial schools, achievements of, 
228, 232. 

Infant mortality, education and, 143. 

Insurance companies, growth of negro 
beneficial, 137. 



Index 



263 



Jeanes and Slater Funds, the work 
OF THE. B. C. Caldwell, 173-176. 

Jeanes fund, rural schools, and the, 
22/i; work under the. 173. 

Jones, S. B. Fifty Years of Negro 
Public Health, 138-146. 

Jones, Thomas Jesse. Negro Popu- 
lation in the United States, 1-9. 

Kentucky, decrease of negro popula- 
tion in, 6. 

Labor system, change in, upon plan- 
tations, 38. 
Labor unions, admission of negroes 

to, 36; attitude of, toward negroes, 

155. 
Land, total value of negro farm, in 

Virginia, 29. 
Land owners, negroes as, 28, 58, 64, 

153, 167. 
Latin America, racial attitude in, 33. 
Lawyer, future possibilities of the 

negro, 17. 
Lee, B. F. Negro Organizations, 

129-137. 
Libraries, establishment of, for ne- 
groes, 225. 
Lichtenberger, J. P. Negro lUiter- 

ac}- in the United States, 177-185. 
Literature, achievements of negroes 

in, 234, 235. 
Literature and Art, the Negro in. 

W. E. Burghardt DuBois, 233-237. 
Louisville, establishment of negro 

libraries in, 225. 
Lynchings, attitude toward, in the 

South, 168; number of, 75. 

Maryland, decrease of negro popula- 
tion in, 6. 

Methodist church, negro followers of, 
61. 

Middle Atlantic States, urban pro- 
portion of negroes in, 8. 

Miller, Kelly. Professional and 
Skilled Occupations, 10-18. 



Miners, wages of negro, 157. 

Ministry, character of negro, 51; op- 
portunities for negroes in the, 123. 

Mortality rate, among negroes, 53, 
115. 

National Association for the Advance- 
ment of the Negro, the, 138. 

Association of Colored Women, 

the, 133. 

Business League, the, 134. 

Federation of Colored Men, first 



meeting of, 133. 

Negro children, at work, 26; average 
and normal age of, 189; comparison 
between, and white children, 190; 
effect of environment upon, 199, 
205; intelligence of, 202; markings 
for, 192; progress of, in various 
subjects, 193; retardation among, 
190, 195; school attendance of, 191. 

Negro National Educational Con- 
gress, the, 136. 

Negro problem, study of, by univer- 
sity students, 48, 70, 170. 

Negroes, advancement of, 11; artistic 
tendencies of, 233; as factor of 
Southern urban population, 8; as 
land owners, 28; as wealth pro- 
ducers, 168; attitude of labor 
unions toward, 155; changes in un- 
skilled labor among, 21; classes of, 
before Civil War, 147; criminal rec- 
ords of, 59; decrease in illiteracy 
among, 22, 51; development of race 
consciousness among, 171; dying 
out of, in the United States, 138; 
economic opportunities for, 88; edu- 
cational needs of, 72; forces retard- 
ing economic development of, 55; 
growth of middle class among, 148; 
home life among, 163; hospitality 
of, 160, 161; improvement in living 
conditions of, 152; improvement in 
personal appearance of, 65; in busi- 
ness, 159; in church administration, 
124; in productive pursuits, 13; in 



264 



Index 



professional service, 13; in skilled 
trades, 155; influence of church 
upon, 164; introduction of, 10; 
literary efforts of, 234; musical ten- 
dencies of, 233; need for vocational 
training of, 89; present attitude 
toward, 11; religious temperament 
of, 120; school distribution of, in 
Philadelphia, 187; segregation of, 
12, 109; situation of, at close of 
Civil War, 219 ; status of, as citizens, 
93; urban and rural distribution of, 
in the North, 8; urban migration of, 
105; wages system among, 22. 

New England, negroes in urban com- 
munities of, 8. 

New Orleans, negro population of, 24, 
81. 

New York, negro population in, 24, 81 . 

North, negro illiteracy in, 179; negro 
population in, 3, 106; negro un- 
skilled labor in, 24; urban and rural 
distribution of negroes in, 8. 

Occupations, field of, for negroes, 113, 
147; negroes in five main classes of, 
20; negroes in productive, 13; whites 
and negroes in gainful, 107. 

Occupations, Professional and 
Skilled. Kelly Miller, 10-18. 

Odum, Howard W. Negro Children 
in the Public Schools of Philadel- 
phia, 186-208. 

Oliver, Superintendent, on rural 
schools, 229. 

Organization, efforts toward, among 
freedmen, 129. 

Organizations, Negro. B. F. Lee, 
129-137. 

Organizations, negro, following Civil 
War, 131. 

Park, Robert E. Negro Home Life 
and Standards of Living, 147-163. 

Part-standing-wage system, contract 
under, 39. 



Peabody, George, gift of, 210. 

Philadelphia, negro population in, 24, 
81; negro unskilled labor in, 25. 

Philadelphia, Negro Children in 
THE Public Schools of. Howard 
W. Odum, 186-208. 

Philadelphia, the Movement for 
the Betterment of the Negro in. 
John T. Emlen, 81-92. 

Playgrounds, available to negroes in 
Philadelphia, 85. 

Population, distribution of negro, 4; 
increase of negro, 1, 2; negro, in 
leading cities, 9, 108; negro, in 
Southern cities, 106; proportion of 
negro to total, 3; segregation of 
negro, 109; state distribution of 
negro, 4, 6; urban and rural distri- 
bution of negro, 180; ward distribu- 
tion of negro, in Philadelphia, 82, 
83, 84. 

Population, Negro, in the United 
States. Thomas Jesse Jones, 1-9. 

Press convention, first meeting of 
colored, 132. 

Prison systems, changes in Southern, 
77. 

Prisoners, number of negro, in North 
and South, 75. 

Professional service, negroes in, 13. 

Public health, agencies for promoting, 
145. 

Public Health, Fifty Years of 
Negro. S. B. Jones, 138-146. 

Race Question, Work of the Com- 
mission OF Southern Universi- 
ties on the. Charles Hillman 
Brough, 47-57. 

Race relationship, during reconstruc- 
tion, 165. 

Race Relationship in the South. 
W. D. Weatherford, 164-172. 

Railroad construction, negro labor in, 
36. 

Relief agencies open to negroes, 87. 

Renter, present negro, 44. 



Index 



265 



Rural school, as factor in negro edu- 
cation, 53; Jean es fund and the, 173; 
Superintendent Oliver on the, 229. 

Sanford, William H., on negro jus- 
tice, 79. 

School system, institution of public, 
220. 

Schools, amount expended on negro, 
167, 224; as factor in uplift of ne- 
groes, 27 ; interest in progress of, 229 ; 
negro children in Philadelphia, 187; 
negro, in Arkansas, 52; success of, 
in negro teaching, 197; total expen- 
ditures for negro, 225, 226. 

Sea islands, negro life on, 149. 

Share-cropping system, the, 38, 40. 

Skilled trades, negroes in, 155 

Slater fund, higher education and the, 
174, 210; work under the, 174. 

Slaves, as unskilled laborers, 19; 
health of, 139. 

Social evil among negroes, 144. 

Social service among negroes, 169. 

South, attitude of races in, 164; atti- 
tude of, toward negro enfranchise- 
ment, 55; changes in prison systems 
of, 77 ; industrial standing of negroes 
in, 35; money expended on negro 
education in, 52; movement of ne- 
groes to cities of, 7; need of trained 
teachers in, 176; negro as factor in 
agricultural development of, 54; 
negro farms in, 68; negro illiteracy 
in the, 179; negro population in the, 
3; negro unskilled labor in, 23; posi- 
tion of the negro in agriculture of, 
36. 

SouTE, Negro Criminality in the 

Monroe N. Work, 74-80. 
South, Race Relationship in the. 

W. D. Weatherford, 164-172. 
South Carolina, negro public schools 

in, 221. 
Southern Sociological Congress, work 

of the, 169. 



Standards of Living, Negro Home 
Life and. Robert E. Park, 147- 
163. 

Suffrage, attitude toward negro, 97; 
educational and property qualifica- 
tions for, 98; restricted, in United 
States, 95. 

Taxes paid by negroes in Virginia, 30. 
Teachers, functions of negro, 15. 
Tenant system and development of 

negro, 55. 
Tenant System and Some Changes 

Since Emancipation, The. Thos. 

J. Edwards, 38-46. 
Tennessee, decrease of negro popula- 
tion in, 6. 
Thomas, Judge W. H., on negro trials, 

78. 
Tuberculosis, among negroes, 53, 139. 
Tuskegee Conference, first annual 

meeting of, 133. 
Tuskegee Institute, the, 176, 215, 221, 

228. 

United States, negro farmers in, 55. 
Unskilled labor, changes, in, among 

negroes, 21. 
Unskilled Labor, the Negro in. 

R. R. Wright, Jr., 19-27. 

Virginia, decrease of negro population 
in, 5; negro farmers in, 149. 

Virginia, Development in the Tide- 
water Counties of. T. C. Walker, 
28-31. 

Vocational training, need for negro, 
89. 

Wages system among negroes, 22. 

Walker, T. C. Development in the 
Tidewater Counties of Virginia, 
28-31. 

Ware, Edward T. Higher Educa- 
tion of Negroes in the United States, 
209-218. 



26G 



Index 



Washington, Bookeh T. Indus- 
trial Education and the Public 
Schools, 219-232; see also 132, 133, 
134, 166, 234, 236. 

Washington, D. C, negro population 
of, 24, 81. 

Watson, J. J., Jr. Churches and Re- 
ligious Conditions, 120-128. 

Weathekford, W. D. Race Rela- 
tionship in the South, 163-172; see 
also 216. 

White Man's Debt to the Negro, 
THE. L. H. Hammond, 67-73. 



Wilberforce University, college de- 
partment in, 209. 

Women, as negro unskilled workers, 
25. 

Work, Monroe N. Negro Crimi- 
nality in the South, 74-80. 

Wright, R. R., Jr. The Negro in 
Unskilled Labor, 19-27. 

Young Men's Christian Association, 
first colored, 131 ; work of, for negro 
betterment, 170. 




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